CracKing, the Second Round
by SapphireShelle91
Summary: It's the 2nd round for Michael and he still can't think how to ask Mia out, hiding behind class and club activities to be closer to her. But will something happen to make him change this tactic? Read and find out. Micheal's POV of Book 2
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Hi everyone. Here is the first chapter of CracKing, the Second Round, YAY! Hope you all enjoy this fic as much as CracKing, the First.  
>And if you have any request for some little add in scenes, let me know, because I'm going to be adding in my own too.<p>

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><p><strong>CracKing, the Second Round<strong>

**Chapter One**

First off;

Ow, my head... or rather my nose and jaw.

Secondly;

I'm seriously hungry, what the heck is the time? It must be close to dinner by now.

One glance at my bedside clock, immediately made me groan. 10:30, dinner I could now see had come and gone and I had slept right though it, brilliant.

Ow, my head, I sat up too fast.

I staggered out of my room, clutching my head with one hand and using my other to guide me to the kitchen.

"Ha, sleeping beauty is awake." I heard my darling lil' sis bark as I staggered into the kitchen, blindly reaching for a bowl and the cereal box.

"Lilly don't be rude. Michael honey, that's Pavlov's food, the cereal is the next box along." Mom said

"What's Pavlov's food doing up here?" I asked as I grabbed the next box from the one I had just grabbed for.

"Well, your Dad was feeding him but then a client rang so…" I nodded, yeah, Dad got a bit distracted whenever a client calls, as does mom, though she's a little more focused. Maybe it's the whole females can multi-task while men can't argument.

"How are you feeling?" Mom asked gently as she took my face in her hands and inspected my face.

"Like shi…" through still half closed eyes I saw her give me a warning look, "like hell." I finished a little lamely.

"Well, you'll be happy to know that the swelling has already started to go down. Your cheek still has that impressive bruise decoration on it, but you're nose actually looks pretty good. I don't even think your going to get a black eyes from it or anything like that."

"Oh yay." I said, though I sounded sarcastic. Mom swatted my shoulder and actually went about finishing getting my cereal ready for me, ordering me to sit at the table while I ate.

"I still can't believe you were beaten up by Josh Richter." Lil sniggered as she worked on her next episode for her show.

"I wasn't beaten up!" I growled at her in annoyance.

"No, from what Principle Gupta said, you both looked in pretty bad shape when you were…" mom cough delicately into her coffee, "brought to her office." Lil now looked moderately impressed though she still eyed me curiously.

"Still don't get why you did it though."

"Huh?" I asked blankly.

"Why you got into a fight with him." She elaborated further. I just shrugged.

"He was pissing me off!"

"Michael, language." Mom sighed. She wasn't getting into this, she had already had her rant at me about my fight with Josh Richter. She had said her words so now she was leaving it.

"Yeah, but he's pissed you off before now and you've never hit him." Lil pointed out, she was pressing for information.

"Lilly…" Mom warned.

"What? I just want to know what set him off, is that a crime? He might be a ticking time bomb now, we don't know what might set him off, so we have to get all the information that we can from this event so that we can prepare for the next time be loses it."

"Lil," I said as I stood up with my now empty bowl of cereal. I put my hand on her forehead and bent her head back gently so that she was now looking at me upside down. "You think way too much. This was a one off," I hoped, but damn it made me feel good, "and isn't it time for you to get to bed?" I teased.

We don't have a standard bedtime schedule in place here in the Moscovitz house, Mom and Dad have sort of got this idea that since we have that whole 'don't ask, don't tell' rule in place that they no longer need to have a scheduled bedtime for Lil and me. Me, I'm basically a few months away from becoming a legal adult, while Lil, she's still just a teen, a young one at that. Plus she's crabby enough in the mornings when she has had eight hours of sleep. She's an absolute nightmare when she has anything less.

She stuck her tongue out at me.

"Come on, bed." I said.

"But… Mom?"

"Listen to your brother, sweetie." Mom said and Lilly scowled half-heartedly back at her.

I placed my bowl and spoon into the dishwasher, before giving Mom a goodnight kiss on the cheek and ushered Lil to bathroom to brush her teeth.

We called 'night' to dad who was in his study pouring over some large, heavy text book, completely wrapped in his own little world, though he did give us a brief wave of acknowledgement.

"You're not going to tell me what the fight was really about, are you?" She grumbled at me through the bathroom door as she brushed her teeth.

"Nope." The bathroom door opened and Lil stood there glaring up at me.

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of your business. Now bed! One of us still needs to get up for school tomorrow." Though I'd still be getting up at the same time as her in the morning too, no sleep in for the wicked. Cause even though I haven't been grounded Maya, as sure as hell, was going to put me to work tomorrow.

"Was it because of what he did to Mia last Saturday?" I paused for just a moment before jerking my thumb in the direction of her room and said, "Bed."

"It is, isn't it? You got into a fight with him for what he did to Mia." She actually sounded excited for some reason.

"Lil, my head is killing me, will you just go to bed already?" she huffed loudly at me.

"I'm not a child! Stop treating me like one!" she growled at me before she stalked off, but as she got to her door just as I was ready to go and brush my own teeth she called back to me.

"Michael?"

"What Lil?" I asked groaning.

"Thanks." I looked at her in surprise and saw that her cheeks were red with embarrassment at having to say thanks, to god forbid, her brother!

"Uh, welcome." I replied somewhat lamely.

She rolled her eyes at me before stalking into her room.

I brushed my teeth without much enthusiasm; actually I did them with as much enthusiasm as I ate my cereal, due to the ache in my jaw, it made the whole experience miserable.

Once I was done, I decided to turn on my computer, to look over my emails quickly. I wouldn't answer any fan-mail, but I would at least see if there were any urgent replies that I might look into tomorrow when I had a free moment from Maya working me as her slave.

None of my emails were urgent or in anyway particularly interesting in my current state of headache-ness.

I was just thinking of turning off my computer when I saw that Mia was online, which I thought was odd because she's usually not up this late.

But hey, since she is I can ask her what was with her today at school

_**CracKing:**_ What was with you at school today? It was like you were off in this whole other world or something.

_**FtLouie:**_ I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Nothing is wrong with me. I'm totally fine.

No, she is totally lying. Except, of course, I couldn't say that to her; instead, I typed back.

_**CracKing:**_ Well, I got the impression that you didn't hear a word that I said about negative slopes.

_**FtLouie:**_ I heard everything you said about negative slopes. Given slope m, +y intercept (0,b) equation y+mx+b slope intercept.

What…the…fuck? And I didn't explain it like that…

_**CracKing:**_ WHAT?

Wait a minute…

_**FtLouie:**_ Isn't that right?

Even over IM she sounds so innocent. She is such a little liar.

_**CracKing:**_ Did you copy that out of the back of the book?

Just to check, I lunged for my bookshelf for the shelf that held all my old text books and flipped to the back of my year 9 algebra text book.

And immediately rolled my eyes. Duh, thought as much.

I waited for a response, which didn't come. She didn't log off, she just didn't reply and soon it was marked as her being away.

I tried not to be too disheartened by those turn of events. Why can't I ever say the right things to her on IM or any of the rest of the time really? I mean, in some ways, making an idiot of myself in front of her some of the time would be far less painful than me coming off as an complete ass to her all of the time.

Groan, my head hurts and it's almost twelve and my bed is calling me.

Night.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So here is chapter one. Hope that you all enjoyed it and are looking forward to chapter 2!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** This chapter is me simply, well torturing Michael, because I enjoy tormenting him.  
>Anyway, this chapter is simply full fiction. It's really got nothing to do with the books, per se, it more simply just explaining (in my own way) how Michael's feeling for Mia developed and progressed to what we see of them in the books. And to do just that, I've made up some of my own backstory (which you'll read here and hopefully like), for their relationship, or rather, as I said above, Michael's feelings for Mia progress.<br>Anyway, to do that, I torture Michael and it's all Mia's fault and she has no idea, as it often happens with Mia. She tortures Michael and has no idea she's doing it and Michael either too much of gentlemen or too embarrassed to mention it to her... I'm going for him being a gentleman because we all here love him.  
>Anyway, please enjoy this latest chapter and please let me know what you think.<p>

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

Lil was late home from school today, though no one was truly worried because it isn't out of the norm for Lil to hang out with Mia at Ray's Pizzeria or in Chinatown after school.

"Did you have a good afternoon with Mia?" Mom asked as we sat around the dinner table eating dinner.

Lilly shrugged. "She was sick and stayed home all day. Says she thinks it just bronchitis, but I'm pretty sure that's what Elizabeth Barrett Browning thought she had too before she kicked the bucket." For a moment there was this sort of dead silence around the dinner table.

"Mia is sick?" Mom asked in concern.

"Please tell me you didn't say that to her when you were over at hers." I asked in concern.

"Yes and yes."

"Lilly!"

"What? I was simply stating that that was what Elizabeth Barrett Browning probably thought she had before she died of consumption."

"So, you decided to freak Mia out by making her think she has Tuberculosis?" I asked, desperately wanting to know what the hell went on in that apparently genius brain that my sister apparently possesses.

"Hey, if you saw her, you'd think she had it too." Lil sniffed.

"Maybe, but I wouldn't say it to her face."

"And that is what makes you such a terrible friend." Lil shot back. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the parental unit glance at each other, roll their eyes, before once more digging into their food. So I couldn't count of them for any support in this, I see. An odd thing because Mia is after all their favourite child. You'd think they'd put a bit more effort in their worriment towards her health and towards who her friends are.

"How does me trying to spare ones feelings make me a terrible friend?" I demanded.

"Because that shows you are afraid to tell them the truth and true friendship is based on truthfulness and honesty between friends. Which is what Mia and I have." She said proudly while I snorted into my food.

"We do." She snapped.

"Lil, being friends with someone, being best friends with them, means that you can be yourself with them, which yes that is something you and Mia do have." most of the time, "But it can also mean that to help them deal with something in their life, it can mean telling them a couple of lies to keep them happy and _not_," I rolled my eyes, "scary the living daylights out of them." I finished with her scowling with me.

"That's a matter of opinion."

"I would think of it more as a matter of keeping them happy and since Mia is sick, I would be doing my best, if I were you, to keep her happy and not making her think she has a disease that was a common killer like a hundred years ago." I said with a shrug.

"What if she was doing drugs?"

"What?" I said, staring at her incredulously.

"What if she was doing drugs? Should I lie to her and say that I was fine with her doing them?"

"That's a completely different issue entirely." I groaned.

"Well when should I lie and when should I tell the truth then?" I could tell that she was gearing up for a fight though why I have no clue.

"You tell her lies when there is a need to, to keep her happy and the truth when you're worried about her." I said feeling exasperated.

I could see that she was about to throw something else at me, but I didn't want to deal with it; I was tired (Maya had worked me hard to day. The parental unit had had better be grateful to the shininess of the floors) and I wanted to go to bed, so I said one of the only things that basically guarantied me an escape, "Geez, Lil, what's the matter with you? You menstrual or something?"

It's actually kind of funny, Lil will go around saying that to other girls without a care in the world but the moment someone (me generally) says it back to her, she immediately shuts up.

Oh she glares at me and won't talk to me for the rest of the night (but is that really such a bad thing?), but it's a sure way to make her shut up.

"Michael." Mom said disapprovingly, but she left it at that. Obviously she was a grateful as Dad (and me) that I had managed to stop this steadily rising argument in its tracks. Lil just sat in her chair, sulking.

"You need to stop saying stuff like that to Mia." I said as Lil and I cleared the table, "you know how Mia gets."

"Why do you even care?" Lil asked, frowning up at me. "I mean a little over a month ago, you didn't give Mia the time of day or whenever you did it was either to tease her or sexually harasses her."

"I never…" I started before glaring down at her. "I'm not going into this with you."

"Then neither am I. God, you're so weird!" she grumbled as I left her to stack the dishwasher and wandered back to my room, closing my door before flopping on to my bed. Though only to immediately swing myself back off it as I turned on my computer.

She wasn't online and the emails that I perceived last night to be boring and unimportant remained appearing boring and unimportant.

There was always homework, but that required brain cells which at the moment I doubt that I possessed more than a couple that were working together as they should.

I flopped back upon my bed, feeling tired and strangely empty, though I didn't know why.

I tried to just sleep but I was in bed far earlier than when I usually collapsed from exhaustion, so sleep evaded me and I found myself thinking about the last time Mia was over at ours, sick with the flu and what ended up happening, which was bad because I made myself promise to forget about that.

What was the point, after all, of remembering it when she didn't? Besides she had been delirious with fever when she did it and of course hadn't had any idea what she was doing! So why couldn't I just forget about it? Why?

I mean I hadn't thought about that very brief moment in time when everything seemed right in the world and I wasn't furious with myself for having friendlier than I was allowed feeling towards her for awhile.

In that very brief moment I could see it all working out, but then it was over and I was having a panic attack about what had just happen and her going into a delirious sleep… lucky.

And she has absolutely no memory of whole thing, damn her!

If she did, she wouldn't be flipping out so bad about Josh "stealing" her first kiss. No, she'd be flipping out over the fact that she gave it to me and I didn't stop her! And then didn't tell her about it. Not that I'm ever going to. Being murdered by my sister is not the way I want to go out.

I really need to stop thinking about it, but I can't, it just keeps playing over and over again in my head.

Tormenting me, torturing me in the memory of that briefest touch and taste of heaven that she didn't even remember giving me.

It was just at the end of Winter Break and she was over at ours for the last week of it because her Mom was invited to show some of her works in an Art Exhibition in Washington and hadn't wanted to leave Mia on her own because Mia couldn't come with her because of her cold.

The first couple of days were ok, she even seemed to be getting better, not that I really knew since this was just when I was starting to avoid her at all costs. Which was easy enough to do for the first couple of days, however the Thursday of that week Mom had planned on taking Mia and Lil to this exhibition over in Brooklyn and spending the night there. Mia's flu however had taken a turn for the worse again on Wednesday so that it became clear that her going was extremely unlikely, though somehow Mia still convinced Mom to continue on with her plans and to take Lil to this exhibition that Lil had been dying to see for months.

The only problem left was; who was going to take care of Mia?

Dad had to work and Maya was on some much needed leave, so that left me, which of course thrilled none of us.

Lil because she didn't like me anywhere near Mia (still doesn't), especially in her defenceless state, telling Mom repeatedly that I was a pervert and that Mia sick enough already without my company being inflicted upon her. Mia sort of was quiet about all of this, but you could tell she wasn't exactly thrilled with being stuck with me for two days and a night either, but by this point she really was too sick to protest, though she did manage to croak out a promise to me, something along the lines of "I won't be any trouble" all I can say now is HA!

And me, I was just thinking how I was going to survive being in her presence for two days, by ourselves, without letting slip that I felt anything other than… contempt?

I really wasn't exactly very friendly towards her in those early days of my discovery of my feelings for her. But I grudgingly took on the task of taking care of her, not that I had to do much, just check on her occasionally throughout the day, make sure she took her medication and get her to eat and drink. That, out of everything else, was the hardest thing to do, because she just wasn't hungry and when she did eat she just ended up throwing it all back up half an hour later, which of course made me check on her more and more often until I just stayed with her in the den watching Star Wars.

Well, I watched Star Wars while Mia fell in and out of fitful sleeps that she'd wake up from in jolts as she either kicked the blankets off to cool herself down or try desperately pulling them back over her because she was freezing.

To say I was worried is an understatement, half a dozen times I had the phone in hand to call the doctor and at one point the ambulance when I took her temperature and it was 99.9. Thankfully though she cooled back down to her fairly steady all day temperature of 99.4

Even when Dad came home from work, I continued to take care of her, which I know that Dad was grateful for due to the large about of work he had brought home with him, he really didn't have the time to take care of a sick teenaged girl, not with the huge meeting he had the next day.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her around twelve o'clock that night. She had been waking and sleeping sporadically all night and this was the longest she had been awake so far.

I was sitting on the floor, leaning my back against the couch, close to where her head was resting on a pile of pillows.

"Hmmm?" she mumbled as she looking at me with blurry eyes.

"How are you feeling?" I repeated gently as I, without even thinking, brushed her fringe from her sweaty forehead.

"Like dead." She said with the slightest of smiles, pressing her burning forehead against my fingers.

"Nice." She added with a sigh as her clammy hand reached out and grasp my wrist with slightly trembling fingers and pressed my hand more firmly against her forehead.

I twisted more firmly around to face her, making it easier for her to hold my hand and less awkward for my hand to be held. My other hand reached out and repeatedly wiped her fringe and hair from her forehead and face.

"Nice." She mumbled again and I grinned.

I didn't understand then why it made me so insanely happy about being so close to her, especially when I had been spending weeks trying to stay away from her, but then, being that close to her, with her hand holding one of mine and my other brushing at her hair and face, it felt right, not wrong.

I never wanted to stop, never wanted her to let go of my hand.

"Michael?"

"Hmmm?"

"My head hurts."

"Do you want some pain-killers?" I moved as if to get up though I hadn't wanted to leave her side because that would mean losing contact with her.

But to my slight relief she had shaken her head slowly, gripping my hand more tightly in hers.

"Are you sure?" I asked. She nodded again.

I looked back towards the TV.

"Michael?"

"Hmmm." I looked back at her, only to have her mouth bump into mine and then pressed against it. It couldn't be really classed as a kiss and yet it was better than any kisses (as few as there have been) that I have ever received or given.

I should have stopped. Pull away from her. Done something other than kiss her back. I should never have kissed her back because technically she hadn't kissed me to begin with, her mouth simply pressed accidentally against mine. I was the one who turned it into a kiss. Me, and she was the one who broke it.

I guess sleep finally caught up on her again, her mouth falling from mine as her head thumped against the pillows, while I stared at her with an open mouth, thinking, oh god, what just happen? What did we just do?

She was out for the rest of the night and most of the next morning, only getting up when Mom and Lil got home from the convention that afternoon.

All afternoon, I sort of hung around, waiting for her to mention what had happened last night, but she never did and all my lurking just caused confused and curious looks from my whole family plus her.

That was when I clicked on to the fact that she didn't remember, she didn't remember a thing. Which was a good thing.

I should have felt relieved, only I didn't. Some part of me had wanted, badly, for her to remember. Just like now, a part of me badly wanted her to remember it. I don't know what it would accomplish with having her remember that not-quite-kiss but I just knew that I wanted her to remember it.

I couldn't tell her though about it, not now at least.

I stared up at my ceiling, trying to block out the images of her face, the taste and feel of her mouth against mine.

Trying… but not exactly working.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Hehehe, torturing Mike is so much fun! Though it did result in me receiving writer's block for a number of days, until I went down to my Dad's and I managed to get over it and continue writing chapters for this fic.  
>Hope the backstory doesn't sound too unreal, it just we know, really, so little of how Michael's feelings for Mia developed (and how they started to begin with) that I wanted to write in this little inner fic into this story.<br>I don't know why, but the idea of Mia giving Michael a fever induced kiss and then not remembering doing it and him then not knowing how to bring it up, all the while trying to decide whether or not it was a good thing that she had forgotten the kiss or not.  
>I don't know, it just seemed like such a MiaMichael thing to happen that I just had to put it in here. Also, I guess, a part of me wants Mia first kiss to belong to Michael.  
>Now I've just got to figure out, how in maybe a later sequal to this or a one-off, how Michael finally tells Mia that ha, her first kiss wasn't Josh. Hehehe, I can predict that'd be an interesting conversation lol.<br>Anyway, let me know what you think and chapter three will be uploaded in a couple of days.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Mia wasn't at school when I went back on Wednesday, neither was Josh Richter, thank god, though his cronies looked to be at a lose without him bossing them around, with him still being suspended and all, so I was pretty much left alone by them.

She wasn't there Thursday either.

"Maybe she has got Tuberculosis." Lil said as we made our way home on the Sub. It was around five in the afternoon, since I had had to stay back at school to do my first day of detention… fixing Staff computers, which by the way, are a complete mess! Don't these people know to not to save documents on their desktops?

Anyway, and Lil had stayed behind to do some top secret project that she won't tell anyone about.

"Lil," I started with a warning tone, causing her to roll her eyes at me.

"Kidding. Jeez, you have no sense of humour." I rolled my eyes back at her as I moved to get up, as this was our stop only to find that Lil was still sitting in the seat in front of mine.

"Oi, Lil, our stop, remember?"

"I'm going over to Mia's to make sure that she hasn't died from consumptions." I stared at her for a moment.

"You are such a cheery friend. Why does she put up with you?" I said, shaking my head but as I made to get out of the train, I called back to her. "Tell Mia I hope she gets better soon." My lil' sis looked at me oddly but she nodded her head anyway.

But when I got home, I didn't feel that that was enough, that I needed to do more, if I wanted to get anywhere with my feeling for her, I had to do more than what I was already doing.

"Evening Michael. Good day?" Maya called to me as I came in the front door, almost being barrelled over by Pavlov, who was pressing himself up against my legs.

"Hey boy. What's up huh? What's the matter?" I said as I bent down, rubbing my hands through his thick fur. "Hey, didcha have a bath, huh? Didcha boy?" I rubbed his fur more vigorously over his back, causing him to whine as he collapsed on to his side, kicking out his back leg.

"He's been sooky all day, ever since I bathed him." Maya said, shaking her head as she came out to the hallway.

"Yeah, as we all know how much he loves he's baths. Don'tcha boy, don'tcha." I ruffled his facial fur as I got to my feet.

"Do you need anything?"

"No, thanks Maya." I said smiling at her as I clapped my hand against my thigh for Pavlov to follow me to my room.

I closed my door behind me and switched on my computer, still trying to think how to tell Mia that I hoped she got better soon.

I sat in my computer chair, swivelling on it as I watched Pavlov sniff around my room, making sure that everything was in order that nothing had changed from the last time he was in here, which was probably right before I came home from school.

I couldn't help but smile as I watched him go about his odd way of, I guess, his idea of protecting me. The more I watched him the more an idea formed in my head on what I should do.

With a grin, I swivelled on my chair again and turned to my computer. It didn't take long to animate a short film of a cat, an orange and white, rather fat cat doing a sort of odd jig on its back legs. I based the cat's design off Mia's infamously fat cat, Fat Louie. I swear she loves that cat more than anyone or anything else in the world.

I stretched my arms above my head staring at the little animated film, feeling more than a little proud of it, but it wasn't finished. But what else could I possibly add to it?

My hands moved for my keyboard again, my fingers posed over the keys. I chewed on the inside of my mouth, my heart doing funny little jig as my throat clogged up slight as I typed.

"Hey everyone." Lil's voice echoed through out the apartment.

I yelled a quick hey in responses before turning back to the animated film, still chewing on the inside of my mouth as the mouse moved over _send_, though it didn't click on it.

"Hey Michael." My door flew open and in surprised I clicked down on my mouse. My heart restricted as I saw that it had been sent.

It's fine. It's fine. I kept repeating over and over again in my head.

"Hey, you look almost as bad as Mia looked." Lil said as she flopped down onto my bed.

"What have I told you about coming into my room uninvited?" I growled, rubbing a hand over my face.

"Hey, I told you that I was coming in."

"Yeah, but you didn't wait for my reply." I snapped at her.

"Jeez, what's the big deal. Honestly, it's just room." She said with some disgust. I fought back the desire to strangle her and instead asked, "What do you want, Lil?"

"Oh, I just thought you might like to know how nutso Mia was this afternoon." Lil replied calmly.

"And I would care why?" I asked, still trying to get over the fact that by her barging into my room, I had been forced to send my Get Well card to Mia, when it wasn't quite finished or rather it was finished but I hadn't exactly wanted to send the message I had typed with it. God, I'm an idiot.

"Oh, I just thought you might because she said some pretty interesting things."

"Like?" I asked, thinking that Mia always said some pretty interesting things, that's what makes her so interesting and so different from all the other girls at school.

"Oh, just that she can't fall in love with a lifeguard because she'll eventually have to marry a man that "her" people will choose for her because it's her royal "duty" to them." I felt like she had just kicked me in the stomach as she snorted all that out. But all I managed to say in return was "lifeguard?" with raised eyebrows even though my stomach was doing flips.

"Oh, or fall for David Hasselhoff because she might have to marry some guy, prince rather, who she has never met before who is from Dubia. Anyway, she has to diligently guard herself from falling in love with anyone because in the end she might have to end up marrying Prince William." My stomach was continuing to plummet with each word she said.

"She can't marry Prince William." I said vaguely. Lil gave me an odd look.

"Because he's in line for his own throne." I explained and Lil's nodded, before she shrugged.

"Doesn't matter anyway, I asked her Dad and he says that she isn't secretly betrothed to anyone, prince or otherwise." A giant weight started to lift off my chest and my stomach levelled itself again.

"But do you know what was the weirdest thing she said." I almost dreaded to ask but did so any way. What can I say; I'm a sucker for punishment.

"What?" I asked. Even though I did dread some at what she was going to say, I was still feeling a hell of a lot better than I had when Lil had first come in.

Lil gave me a searching look before saying, "It's really nothing, it just," her eyes searched my face, "she mentioned you in her list of 'guys she can't fall in love with because she might be married off to some feign prince'. Weird, huh?" My stomach plummeted again but for a completely different reason from before and yet at the same time for the exact same reason as before.

"Me?" I asked with weak sort of laugh. "Come off it, Lil. Why would I be included in that list, huh?" I gave another weak laugh.

"How the hell should I know? You tell me?" the searching look became stronger and I almost felt as if she was trying to see into my soul, which is a disturbing thought.

"I have no idea, Lil. Maybe she was just using me as an example."

"Example for what?"

"I don't know, Lil, you tell me."

Instead of telling me her thoughts, she just sort of smiled at me as she got up from my bed and walked out of my room.

"Lil?"

"You are so slow." She laughed and closed my door behind her with me just staring after her in disbelief.

What the hell did she mean?

How and why was I slow?

Slow with what?

_Love,__Michael_

I leant back in my chair and stared up at my ceiling, which was still as boring as hell.

_Love,__Michael_

I might be going slow with this, but at least I was doing something now. Slow and steady.

I needed her to understand that what I feel for her is real, that I've felt them for a long, long time and they weren't likely to be going to go anywhere anytime soon.

_Love,__Michael_

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Sorry about chapter 3 being so short. Four will be longer, promise.  
>Also thank you for all the lovely comments, they've had me smiling all day, thank you<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Kids, hurry up or you'll be late for school. Oh and Lilly," Dad called from his study, "Mia's limo is here." Lilly and I both looked up at him from where we were staking the dishwasher.

"You coming?" Lil asked once we were done with the dishwasher and were grabbing our bags and heading for the door.

"What?"

"You coming?" she asked again, looking frustrated. "You were expressing such concern for Mia's health yesterday; don't you want to see how she is?"

"Ah." I said lamely.

"Just come on."

I tried not to let my excitement show on my face. It seemed so stupid to get all excited over the fact that I was simply going to see her face. To see her and yet, excited I was and… happy, when I did see her as Lil and I got into her limo.

She still looked pale and there was a tiredness to her eyes but otherwise she seemed to be her usual self.

"Hi." She said smiling at us.

"Hey." Lil said as she sat down beside her. I sat down across from them.

"Hi." I said, feeling suddenly lame and ok, I admit it, scared too. I mean I did send her an animation last night that said Love, Michael on it. I mean, how was she supposed to react to that? How was I supposed to react to her the next day?

I could feel her glancing at me as she listened to Lil prattle on about something or other.

I suddenly felt bad. I was ignoring her again. Not exactly the same way as I had done before but it was similar enough.

I can't mess this up, not again!

I could feel Lars rolling his eyes at me before mouthing to me "talk to her."

Yeah, easier said than done.

Well, actually it was. Easy, that is, to talk to her.

As soon as we pulled up out front of the school, Boris was coming down the front steps of the school towards us. Lil bounced out of the Limo to meet him, leaving Mia and me (and Lars) behind her.

"Um, how's your, um, nose and um, jaw?" I heard a shy voice ask from my side.

I looked to my side and saw Mia looking up at me, worry in her grey eyes. I touched my nose and jaw, I had almost completely forgotten about them.

"I had completely forgotten about them actually. But they're fine, thanks for asking." She smiled up at me in relief.

"I'm glad. So, um…"

"Did you see this week's episode of Buffy?" I asked quickly. I watched her face break in an even wider smile as she nodded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lars nodded in approval and felt a wave of relief pass through me.

All the way up the school's front steps and to her locker we were in a heated discussion about the latest episode of Buffy and the only reason it finished there at her locker because the first bell rang and I hadn't even gotten any of my books for any of my morning classes.

"See you at G&T." I said, grinning as she smiled back at me.

"Ok, bye. See you then."

I watched her head for homeroom before racing for my locker.

Felix was grinning at me widely when he entered English.

"What? Not another new girlfriend?" I asked with a snort.

"Nope, still with the old one," For now, I thought, rolling my eyes, "though it looks like you're on your way to getting one yourself." He chuckled.

I frowned at him in confusion and said, "Huh?"

Felix rolled his eyes at me.

"Come on, don't be cute. Nearly the whole school either saw or heard about you dancing with her last Saturday night. And this morning basically the same thing, the school either saw or heard about you walking her to her locker. So, spill. Are you or are you not with her?"

"Not…"

"Oh gods! Dude, seriously?" Felix groaned as he leant back in his chair to smack the back of his head against the cabinet behind him.

"You didn't let me finish, Felix, I was going to say 'not yet'"

"So, you are actually working on changing you relationship status, huh?" I rolled my eyes at him and he grinned.

"Look, I just worry about you dude. You've been single for like forever."

"Sure." I said snorting, "Like you care."

"I do." He said with a mock hurt expression.

"Uh huh, sure." I said but I couldn't help but grin. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Josh Richter and his cronies enter the classroom.

I saw that Felix and probably the rest of the class was looking nervously between Josh and I, but the two of us simply ignored the other existence, though I was pleased to note that the decoration that I had caused on his chin was still impressive in its colour.

"Well, I guess that's a good sign." Felix muttered beside me.

"Hmmm?"

"Him ignoring you, at least that's how it looks like. Maybe he felt that you beat him enough and he beat you enough to call it even." He said with a shrug.

"Maybe." I said, not really caring all that much.

"Just try to keep yourself from becoming pissed off at him again, ok?"

"Fine." I said, not that I had ever planned to go one-on-one with Josh again in a fist fight, my nose and jaw still ached from the one of Monday and I wasn't in all that much of hurry to repeat the experience of a broken nose again.

"So when are you going to ask her out?" Felix asked, returning to our previous conversation.

I shrugged, I was still trying to figure out the finer details of it all, I wasn't even up to the asking her out phase yet.

I saw Felix shake his head beside me.

"She's not going to wait forever dude. Someone is eventually going to come along and snare her up."

"Someone better than me, more worthy of her than me, right?" I said, voicing a fear that I had been thinking of over and over again for the past two weeks, fears that had be even more firmly cemented in my head from my conversation with Lil last night.

I rubbed my hand against my face.

"I know, Felix, I know, ok. I already thought of all that, already." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felix shaking his head.

"Dude, that wasn't what I meant."

"No, but that's the truth of it, isn't it? Right down to it, that's the truth of being with her. Cause even if I do one day ask her out and become her boyfriend, it won't matter because one day I am going to just lose her to someone better for her, more worthy of her." I stared up at my English classroom ceiling as I spoke, feeling a headache eating into my skull.

"You don't know that for sure." Felix muttered beside me. I just looked at him before turning my attention to the rest of the class, no one had been bothered to listen to the two nerds conversation, no one cared what we were talking about and why would they? Not like they would ever have reason to suspect that one of the two nerds was crushing badly on the newly claimed Princess of Genovia!

My headache only grew worse over the course of the day that I wasn't even able to focus enough to help Mia with her Algebra in G&T, it was that bad.

It was made even worse due to Boris's newest play list, featuring Bartok.

Even locking him in the supply closet wasn't enough to shut out the noise and my head felt about ready to explode.

I thought about heading for the nurse office but that meant getting up and my head felt like it would explode if I even tried to stand.

I wasn't even really working on my laptop; I was looking at the screen without seeing. I could hear Mia and Lilly talking over the noise of Boris violin and the general din of G&T not to mention the drums beating in my head.

They were talking about Lil's stalker, Norman the foot fetish stalker who sends her free stuff whenever she gives him even the slightest glimpse of her feet. It's pathetic. Both of them.

Oh god, Boris, shut up! My head is going to explode, seriously and I just missed what Mia had just said. Which I felt was something important because I saw her watching me, as if expecting me to do or say something.

Agh, I couldn't take it anymore! My head was going to explode and that would be messy.

I got up slowly from chair, locking my laptop before I left the G&T room for the nurse's office, which only proved to be a complete waste of my time as she wouldn't even give me even one lousy aspirin as it was in violation of the school code.

"Did you get an aspirin?" Lil asked as I walked back in G&T. I grunted at her as I flopped back down in front of my laptop, un-locking it but that was basically as far as I got.

I felt a sort of shy tap on my shoulders and I turned around, startled to see Mia standing a little awkwardly next to me.

"Hi." I said a little blankly, my throbbing head making it hard to think.

"Hey, um, here." She was holding something out for me, a small, brown bottle.

"Wha?" I took it gently from her and even with the throbbing of my head; I still felt the spark that passed through my fingers from touching her hand. I looked down at the little bottle that now rested in my hand. It was cough medicine.

"I know it's supposed to be used for colds and flu but it helps with getting rid of headaches. I mean, I found it helped with mine, so, um, you know, maybe it'll help with your headache too." She was babbling and embarrassed for some reason, going on how red her cheeks were turning and the fact that she wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Thanks Mia." I said as I searched for my water bottle in my back pack, pulling it out.

I took care when I downed half a mouthful of cough syrup. I pulled a face at the taste, which I heard Mia giggle softly at before I took several swigs of water from my water bottle.

"Thanks Mia." I said again as I handed the cough syrup bottle back to her.

"You're very welcome." She said with a smile. "Hope it helps clear up your head."

"Oh, it already has." I said quickly, and it was partly true, already my head was starting to clear up. "My head is clearly right up."

She smiled widely at that before she walked back over to her sit beside Lil, who was looking up at her with mild amusement.

My head cleared up even further when Boris knocked over a can of paint thinner and had to stop playing Bartok because he was suffocating inside the closet.

For the rest of the day, my head was completely clear of headache that is until I found out from Lil that Mia was sent to Gupta's office because of her giving me her cough medicine.

"That's stupid." I growled in annoyance. "What, am I going to get high on it or something?"

"Don't take it out on me! Jeez. And it's probably because it has codeine in it, that's probably why she got in trouble for bring it."

"Still," I said exasperated by the whole school system.

Lil just rolled her eyes at me as we stood outside school by the limo, waiting for Mia and Lars to appear. Well, she was waiting for them to appear, I, annoyingly had a computer club meeting to go to… or not go to, when I saw Mia's face.

"Hey." I said to them, though it was directed more towards her, as they finally came down the front steps toward us, feeling hugely guilty for getting her in trouble.

"Hi." She said. She looked a little upset which made me feel worse.

"Did you get into a lot of trouble?" I asked her as we got into the limo. She looked at me in puzzlement.

"For giving me the cough medicine." I elaborated. She blinked at me in surprise.

"How did you hear about that?" she squeaked. I pointed at Lil. Mia looked at her questioningly and Lil shrugged with an exasperated expression written all over her face.

"It's you! Everybody hears everything that you do now; it's hard not to hear what you're up to now days." Which is true though Mia didn't look all that happy as she slumped back into her seat and growled fiercely up at the limo's sky roof, muttering, "no privacy,".

"Anyway," I said, trying to pull Mia out of her down mood, "you didn't get detention, did you?" she shook her head.

"No, I just got a warning and told not to bring it on Monday." I felt relieved, the last thing I wanted or needed was her upset with me over getting her in trouble for her giving me the cough medicine.

Anyway, by the time, that the limo pulled up at Lil and mine apartment, the three of us were all laughing over the ridiculous of our school's rules.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Michael?" I hate it when she uses the voice.

"What?" I asked cautiously as Lil came slowly into my room.

"Are you going to be here today?"

"What?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Are you going out today?"

"Ah, yeah," I said slowly, trying to figure out what she was up to, "remember I'm going to Columbia today."

"Right, for the lecture on quasars." She said slowly.

"Lil, what are you up to?" I demanded, crossing my arms across my chest.

"Nothing, jeez, you're so suspicious."

"Only because you give me good reason to be." I replied coolly.

She rolled her eyes.

"Look, I'm just having some friends over and I don't want you around, ruining everything." She said.

"Ruin everything? And how do I manage ruin everything?" You do that well enough yourself, I added silently in my head.

"Well, besides the fact that you sexually harass Mia on weekly bases…"

"I do not." I said, though it came out more as a yell.

"You do too! Or at least, you want to." She said, a slyness sinking into her voice.

"Excuse me?" I demanded, feeling my face grow hot at her comment.

She gave me a somewhat deadpan look.

"It's obvious to anyone who bothers to look and see." She said

"What?"

"Look are you going to be gone all day or what? We're going to be working on my show here and I don't want any interruptions."

"Um, yeah." I said slowly.

"Good." She hop up from my bed, smiling. "See you later." I just stared after her with, I'm guessing, a struck dumb expression.

Oh god, she knows, she knows, she knows!

My whole head felt like it was going to explode with the knowledge and yet I couldn't help but think that she didn't appear to be too upset by her apparent knowledge of my feels for Mia.

But I tried not to think too deeply about that and simply bolted out of the house as fast as I was able to, to go and meet Paul, Judith and Felix (who was only coming along only because I offered to "help" do a large portion of his chemistry assignment if he just promised to keep Judith as far away from me as possible. She had grown quite… persistent in the past week to be in my… company (?) and I needed a buffer since Paul found the whole thing to be hilarious. As did Felix but I had also threaten him with bodily harm and since he witness me beat up Josh on Monday he's not willing to push it by laughing at my trying to avoid Judith.) at the subway.

The lecture was interesting, though I already knew most of the stuff that was spoken about.

"Ooh, I can't wait." Judith said brightly as we left Columbia's vast campus.

"For?" Felix asked sounding irritated. He had been bored stiff through out the whole lecture and was as sick of Judith yabbering as I was, though for completely different reasons to me.

"To come here, of course." She squealed excitedly completely oblivious to Felix's bad mood. "Aren't you, Michael?" she smiled widely at me. Behind her I saw Paul snigger, though it quickly turn to coughing due Felix elbowing him in the ribs.

"Um, yeah, a bit I guess." I said slowly, putting more distance between us. I didn't understand what was going on with Judith of late, she had a boyfriend and yet… one moment she was pissed off at me, an attitude she has always had towards me for years, basically ever since freshman year and I beat her (without trying) in an algebra pop-quiz, and then she was like… this. Trying to be close to me, trying to get closer to me, for reason I have no idea about.

I honestly do not understand girls… at all.

"So do we want to get something to eat?" Judith asked as she moved to walk at my side. I tried to hide my irritation as I looked down at my watch, checking the time. 1:30. I was hungry but I just wanted to go home. I wanted to…

I wanted to see Mia.

With Judith basically clued to my side, I was suddenly desperate to see her, her face, her smile. I just wanted to just be with her.

"I think I might just head home." I said, once more putting some distance between myself and Judith, who was now pouting at me.

"That's a shame." She said sounding torn between being sad and frustration, "Why?"

"Parental unit want my help with some stuff," I said with a shrug, "can't be helped, sorry. Bye."

"Don't forget about next Saturday, Michael." She called after me.

I looked back at her with a confused expression, what was she on about? Behind her I saw both Paul and Felix roll their eyes at me. Judith just laughed at me.

"It's Halloween, silly. And remember, the computer club is going to go to see Rocky Horror Show that night." Oh right, yeah, another stupid outside school club activity that I wanted nothing to do with and yet somehow found my sorry ass being dragged into. And even worse, we're all supposed to be going in a sort _Saving__Private__Ryan_ theme.

"Right," I said and gave the three a half hearted wave as I headed for the subway. The whole way home my thoughts, like usual these days, were filled with thoughts about her. As corny as this will sound, all I wanted at that moment was to see her face, her smile, simply see her.

"Hey Sweetie, good lecture?" Mom asked as I walked into the kitchen, hoping to grab a bowl of cereal before escaping to the safety of my room.

"Um, yeah, it was interesting." I said as I started shovelling cereal into my mouth.

"But you knew it all, right?" Dad said laughing.

I shrugged and spooned another spoonful of cereal into my mouth.

"Alright, well, I'm going to my room, My brain is fried." I said as I quickly washed out my bowl.

"Alright, sweetheart." Mom said.

"The girls might be a tad loud though," Dad warned.

"How many girls' Lil got over?" I asked, feeling vaguely curious.

"Oh, let see, Shameeka, Ling Su, oh um, Tina and of course Mia."

"She was just out here actually, looking a little guilty about something." Dad observed.

"Hope Lilly isn't making her do anything out of her comfort zone." Mom responded thoughtfully.

"I'll go make sure they're all not doing anything illegal." I said and left the kitchen.

I was just at Lil's bedroom door when I heard a distant 'splat' noise that sounded vaguely familiar.

Ok, maybe more than vaguely.

Dammit, Lil!

I flung her door open and just as I expected, Mia was leaning out of Lil's window. Dammit!

I ran to her side, grabbing her firmly around her slim waist and yanked her (my own body following) to the floor as I snapped "Get down!" to the rest of the girls, which they all promptly did. I tried to stay focused and furious with each one of them but it was hard to do when I had Mia's body all pressed up against mine, her somewhat ragged breath breathing up against my ear.

With a great deal more effort than I'll ever admit, I pulled myself off her, though my arm remained around her waist.

"Are you guys' stupid, or what?" I snapped at the girls, three of which had the sense to look ashamed with themselves.

Of course, my sister was not one of these girls; she just continued to glare definitely back at me. And Mia, well truth be told I wasn't exactly inclined to look at her, in fear that I might do something that might get me slapped… by both my sister and possibly her… or she might enjoy it.

Right, bad thoughts, stop!

"Don't you know, besides the fact that it's a good way to kill someone, it's also against the law to drop things out the window in New York City?" I growled at them. I felt Mia suck in an anxious breath beside me. I was tempted to give her waist a comforting squeeze, but thought better of it what with Lil and the three other girls in the room.

"Oh, Michael," Lil said looking at me as if I was some disgusting bug. "Grow up. It was a common garden vegetable." Now I felt even more annoyed about the situation. I had thought, the moment I saw what was going on that Lil was behind it but the fact that she didn't seem to care just how serious this could possibly be for Mia, just pissed me off.

"I'm serious." I snapped at her. "If anyone saw Mia do that just now, she could be arrested." Did Lil seriously not understand that?

"No, she couldn't" no, she obviously didn't. "She's a minor."

"She could still go to juvenile court. You better not be planning on airing that footage on your show." I warned her firmly, even though I could already tell that that was exactly what she was planning on doing.

"I most certainly am." Can I strangle her now? Please? Or at least shake some sense into her?

"Well," I said, knowing my sister stubbornness too well, tried to come to a compromise, "you better edit out the parts that show Mia's face."

"No way." My ever stubborn and selfish sister said.

"Lilly," I said trying to sound calm and collect, "everybody knows who Mia is. If you air that segment, it will be all over the news that the Princess of Genovia was caught on tape dropping projectiles out the window of her friend's high-rise apartment. Get a clue, will you?" the last bit came out as a growl, though more from the frustration of having to let go of Mia's waist (the other three girls were losing some of their interest in the argument between my sister and I and one of them had subtly pointed at the hand that had been remaining around Mia's waist for far longer than it probably should have.) though I was somewhat pleased to see the small pout that had form on her lips the moment I had released her waist.

_Michael,__focus,__look__into__that__later_, I told myself firmly.

I could hear, I think it was Tina, agreeing with me, but of course she would understand since her father has her bodyguard on a very strict rule of thumb that any photos or videos taken of Tina had to be destroy… immediately or soon after.

Of course, this still wasn't enough for stubborn as a bull sister of mine.

With a disgruntled sigh, she stomped and this where I wonder just how smart my sister really is, because she actually started to lean out her window to check if anyone was checking to see what floor the garden vegetable had fallen from.

Idiot!

I grabbed her arm before she could do so and jerked her away from her window, snapping at her, and the rest of the girls, "Rule number one, if you insist on dropping something out the window, never, ever check to see if anybody is standing down there, looking up. They will see you look out and figure out what apartment you are in. Then you will be blamed for dropping whatever it was. Because no one but the guilty party would be looking out the window under such circumstances."

"Wow, Michael," Shameeka said, sounding admiring. "You sound like you've done this before."

I felt my ears starting to grow warm.

"Let's just say I say I used to have a very keen interest in experimenting with the earth's gravitational pull." I admitted though I had never dropped anything from this height and especially not with so many people around. That's just stupid.

I could feel all the girls, even my sister, looking at me with different degrees of admiration. All of them, except for Mia, who was staring down at her toes, though I could just see the creases of her forehead as she frowned… or was she simply in deep thought. I desperately wanted to ask her. Was she mad at me?

I escaped shortly after that, after I made them all promise to not drop any more lethal garden vegetables out of Lil's window or any other window in our apartment.

Lil gave me evils for that but the rest of the girls agreed readily enough.

Mia was sitting on the floor, scratching Pavlov's chin. The pathetic, lucky dog looking like he was in heaven as she did it.

I left him there and stalked to my room, where I stayed (hiding rather, teenaged girls, even normally quiet, excluding my sister, girls that those lot generally are, can be rather loud with enough energy drinks and lollies, not to mention, just winding themselves up by just by being in each other presence) until there was timid knock on my door as well as scratching, which was obviously Pavlov and I had a pretty good guess who the knocker was, both by the timid knock and Pavlov's presences. So without any real hesitation or reluctance, I opened my bedroom door to Mia who was standing there with some delicious smelling Thai in her hands that she held out sort of like a peace offering.

"Hi," I said as I took the food containers (and fork) from her.

"Your Mom and Dad figured that you might not want to eat with…" she trailed off, trying to find an appropriate yet accurate word to describe her friends.

"Loud, squealing girls?" I offered with a grin. She went a little red but nodded.

"Yeah, um, sorry."

"Nah, it's ok. Sounds like you're all having fun."

"Yeah, we are."

"Just don't drop any more garden vegetables out of high-rise windows, ok." Her cheeks went even redder and she ducked her head so that her hair fell over her face.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." I said with a shrug. As she turned to leave, I couldn't help but ask, "What was it? The veg that you dropped out of Lil's window?"

"Um," she looked sheepish, "an eggplant." I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"Classic, Thermopolis." I chuckled. She looked torn between being pleased and ashamed of herself.

"Listen, if you're really interested in the earth's gravitational pull, I can sh…"

"Mia? What are you doing? The food is getting cold." My charming sister screeched from the kitchen.

"Coming." Mia called back, though her tone was softer than Lil's. She looked back at me with some hesitation, as if she wasn't sure if she should leave or not. I forced myself to smile and nodded my head in the direction of the kitchen.

"You better go, darling sister can't be kept waiting." She grinned at me before leaving my room, closing my door behind her, something that no member of my family do without any sort of reminder from me.

I stared after her as Pavlov hopped up onto my lap. I scratched him beneath his chin and his belly before sighing heavily into his fur as I buried my face against his head.

"What am I going to do, huh boy?"

Pavlov simply gave a delighted whine at the attention I was giving his chin and tummy.

"Yeah, you're a real big help." I sighed and turned back to my computer, digging into my Thai food though not really tasting it.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I think this chapter, so far in this fic, is my favourite chapter. I'm not overly sure why. I guess I just like the M&M moments in it. I don't know this chapter just made me smile as I wrote it and I had no trouble in writing it either, so yeah.  
>Also I do enjoy writing in Felix, Paul and Judith. They're so much fun to write and I love that I can use them to tease Michael about his inability and slowness to ask Mia out on a real date. But it's also a little sad, the more I write Judith the more I grow to like her.<br>I know that a lot people say that it's all her fault that Mia and Michael broke up, but... he slept with her too. It takes two people to _do it_, so it's not all her fault.  
>In a way, I'm not overly looking forward to writing book 3, because I've going to have think up a reason on the why Judith would cheat on her boyfriend and sleep with Michael. And why he agreed! I mean, I know he's down about losing Mia to 'snort' Kenny (of all people!), but Judith must have been pretty convincing to get him to sleep with her when he probably well knew (and in this I'm making him know) that Judith has a boyfriend already.<br>I think, their sleeping together was more them just using each other in their own way of getting back at the person who hurt them, aka Judith boyfriend in Judith case (for whatever reason) and Mia in Michael's.  
>Yeah, book 3, not overly looking forward to writing it, I think it's going to rather angst ridden, with a lot people being hurt because I do think that Judith does genuinely like Michael and I think Michael (not on purpose, I'm sure or rather hoping) broke her heart.<br>Anyway, I'm going to stop blabbering, but if you have any ideas for the why's and how's of Michael and Judith relationship getting to the point that we know it does, I would love to hear them because I am dreading writing book 3, which I'm getting ever closer to doing every day.  
>Anyway, Hope you all enjoyed.<br>And I've finished writing book 2, YAY!


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Sorry for not updating in awhile, I have no real excuse. I promise that I will make it up to everyone who is reading this by updating the rest of this fic hopefully today, because I've finished writing it and have moved on to writing book 3, if anyone is interested in reading it.

**Chapter Six**

"Well I guess I should thank you for staying out of our business, but…."

"You're not going to, right?" I said from where I was spread out on the couch in the den, a bowl of popcorn resting in my lap, my eyes basically glued to the Star Trek marathon, only to have the channel changed over before my eyes.

"Hey!"

"Oh cool it, I just wanted to check…" she trailed off as she stared open mouth at the TV. My mouth dropped only seconds after hers did when I saw what the ad was advertising.

"Wow. Guess it was going to happen sooner or later." I commented digging into my popcorn.

"But she didn't tell _me_!" Lilly snapped, looking furious.

I rolled my eyes. Not this again!

"It's Mia! You know she hates this sort of thing. She probably thought that if she stuck her head in the sand about it, then it might go by unnoticed."

"But it won't." Lilly growled

"Again, it's Mia. Remember this is the girl who tried to keep her whole royal status a secret for like three weeks." I reminded her.

Lilly nodded slowly before her facial features pulled into a scowl as she grabbed for the phone that stood by the couch.

"Don't yell it at her." I groaned as Lil scowled furiously at me as she dialled.

"Mia." She said tartly into the phone. I heard a faint puzzled 'Hi Lilly, what's up? Did I forget something?'. I watched Lil's eyes narrow with each word Mia spoke and groaned again as I waited for my sister to explode.

"What's this I hear about you being interviewed on _TwentyFour/Seven_ this week?" Lil demanded tartly.

'How did you know?' I smacked my palm against my forehead. Now she was in for it.

"Because there are commercials announcing it every five minutes, dorkus." I pulled a face at her which ignored.

There was a few minutes of silence on the other end of the phone before we both heard Mia give a squeal of surprise (and distress too). I guess she turned on her TV and saw one of the ads that Lil and I were seeing.

Lil flicked threw all of our TV channels and we both saw that most station was showing commercials for Mia's interview with Beverly Bellerieve.

"So why didn't you tell me you were going to be on TV?" My darling, sweet sister wanted to know.

'I don't know.' I heard Mia reply, her voice sounded even weaker than before. 'It just happen yesterday. It's no big deal.' That of course was the completely wrong thing to say to Lil, who basically exploded at that.

"_No__big__deal?_" Ow, my ears! _"__You__were__interviewed__by__Beverly__Bellerieve__and__it__was__no__big__deal?__Don__'__t__you__realize__that__Beverly__Bellerieve__is__one__of__American__'__s__most__popular__and__hardest-hitting__journalists__and__that__she__is__my__all-time__role__model__and__hero?_" My eyebrows shot to my hairline at that. Since when? Since when had Beverly Bellerieve been Lil's all-time role model and hero? And when had she thought of her as a hard-hitting journalist? Last time I heard Lil talk about Beverly Bellerieve, she was saying far less flattering things about the journalists.

Lil calmed down a little after that, only to become completely fed up with Mia.

"The only reason I'm not mad at you is that tomorrow you are going to tell me every single little detail about it."

'I am?' Lil rolled her eyes at the phone but didn't comment, opening to say something more but Mia stopped her by asking, 'why should you be mad at me?' which I thought was an excellent question, though obviously Lil did not.

"Because you gave me exclusive first rights to interview you. For _Lilly__Tells__It__Like__It__Is_" Lilly reminded both her and me because I had forgotten that little agreement between the two of them that they had made at the Cultural Diversity Dance. I had had a feeling even then that the agreement might come back to bite Mia.

I rolled my eyes again and looked back towards the TV as another commercial rolled on. I never realise how much eyeshadow, especially blue eyeshadow, brought out Mia's grey eyes.

"Can I have the remote back now?" I asked as Lilly hung up.

"What? Oh fine, here." She pegged it at my head, though I managed to catch it before impact.

"Such a sweet, gentle little sister." I said sarcastically.

"Such an annoying, perverted older brother." I rolled my eyes at her and flicked the channel back to the Star Trek Marathon.

Once it was finished, I headed back to my room because Lil was hovering and obviously wanted the TV to herself, and it was just easier to leave the room than try to battle it out for the remote with Lil.

I logged on to my computer and immediately Felix instant message me.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Hey Dude. See all the commercial advertising your little princess interview with that hot journalist?

_**CracKing:**_ Yeah, I saw them. All of them. On every channel.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ To get their moneys worth, of course.

_**CracKing:**_ Of course.

_**Stoned_Somber:**_ I mean seriously, they'd be getting some pretty serious dough for this. Every time a royal gets interviewed, stations milk it for all its worth.

_**CracKing:**_ I suppose.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ You don't think that all this will go to her head or anything do you?

I pulled a face at that before typing back.

_**CracKing:**_ I highly doubt it. Mia isn't that type of person. Remember she didn't even want people to know about her being a princess. This is probably just making her want to crawl into a hole and not come out ever again.

**Stoned_Sober:** Yeah, you're probably right. How do you think her interview went?

I paused, thinking and cringing a little. This was Mia after all, and Mia sort of has this tendency to let her mouth run away with her whenever she gets nervous or embarrassed or actually anytime really, whenever she is put on the spot.

**CracKing:** I'm hoping that Beverly Bellerieve is as good an interviewer as everyone says she is.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Well, she's hot.

I shook my head at my computer.

_**CracKing:**_ Completely beside the point dude.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Doesn't stop it from being true though. Not to mention, she's built too.

I stared up at the heavens, rolling my eyes before typing.

_**CracKing:**_ I guess…

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ But right, your interest lie more in the tall, skinny type, huh?

I decided to ignore that comment.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Well, she is. Tall, skinny and with… rather weird hair.

_**CracKing:**_ Her hair is just fine.

I scowled fiercely at my computer screen.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Dude, chill, I was kidding. Don't peg a basketball at me.

_**CracKing:**_ Ha ha, funny.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ So what was Judith on about yesterday?

_**CracKing:**_ What part? She said a lot.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Halloween, next Saturday, you and the rest of your little computer geeks are going to...

_**CracKing:**_ Rocky Horror Show is showing over at the Village Cinema that night and Judith wants a bunch of us from the computer club to go.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ You going to ask the princess to come with you?

_**CracKing:**_ Wha?

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Are you going to ask her to go with you? To the theatre with you and the computer club.

I looked at my screen blankly.

_**CracKing:**_ Why?

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ My god you are so thick. You want to get close to her don't you? So why not ask her to be with you on Halloween? Ask her if she wants to go with you to the Rocky Horror Show.

I blinked several times at what he had written. My god, I am thick! Why the hell didn't I think of that?

_**CracKing:**_ I'll think about it.

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Don't think about it, just do it already! Heck if it goes well, you might finally build up the guts and actually ask her out for real.

I felt my lips twitch into a small smile.

_**CracKing:**_ Maybe. Look, I have to work on the zine, so talk to you later?

_**Stoned_Sober:**_ Right dude, see ya tomorrow.

I signed off and looked into the stuff I thought to put in my webzine this month, while still thinking over what Felix had said. Asking Mia if she wanted to come to Rocky Horror Show with me on Halloween, wasn't a bad idea. Ok, there would be a ton of other people there that we'd both know, but that would be ok, we'd still get to hang out. The only problem was, was how to ask her.

I chewed on the inside on my mouth; I signed on again just to check if she had signed on or not. She hadn't, but that was ok, gave me more time to think on how to ask her.

And I would. I would ask her out.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This chapter gave me a lot of trouble. I originally didn't have Michael and Felix IM conversation in it (Which made it an extremely short chapter), mainly because I couldn't think of a screen-name for Felix, otherwise he would have been IMing Michael much earlier than this. It's actually thanks to the horror movie _**Pulse**_ starring Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) and Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries), which I was watching at the time that I was re-typing this chapter for like the fourth time, that help me come up with Felix's screen-name (Funny how these things happen, I'm terrified out of my wits, but I get over my writer's block).  
>By the way, do not watch this movie if your faint heart or you don't like ghosts or have a fear of technology turning against you, it is a bloody creepy movie and I'm not likely to watch it again anytime soon. It was very good horror movie, the characters were well thought out and had more depth then most horror movie characters and overall the plot was very believable... which is why it freaked me out so much. I can see it being a movie that Michael would put on just so that he could get Mia jumping into his arms. Anyway, overall don't watch the movie for any of the reasons I said above as well and if you do want to watch, be at least over 15, ok.<br>Anyway, hope you enjoyed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

I'm really starting to hate Mondays.

Monday just do not appear to be my day. Though it wasn't Josh who made the day insufferable, no, it was his girlfriend. Lana Weinberger.

Yes, they are back together. And apparently it's a whole new record, too!

Anyway, she ruined a perfectly good conversation with Mia (and Lil too. Lars was walking behind us.).

The three of us were leaving G&T for our respective classes that were all across the hall from each other when Weinberger walked right up to us, Mia and me, wagging two fingers at the pair of us, asking, "Are you two going out?"

I felt like my head was going to explode and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Mia looked quite a bit the same way.

Thank god for Lil, though.

She gave this huge horse laugh before saying "As if" before laughing again. But so did Weinberger and her little group of sheep followers. This snapped me out of my own embarrassment and simply glared back at them.

I could see Mia out of the corner of my eye, staring intently down at her feet, her face still explosively red, looking quite desperate for the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Was it so bad for her name to be paired with mine? But then, I hadn't reacted all that well to what Weinberger had said either.

I wanted to say something to her, anything. But as soon as Weinberger shoved past her, Mia bolted for her biology classroom, Lars following her, all the while sending death glares after Weinberger and her cronies. He didn't even look at me, which made me even surer that I had messed up.

"That went well." I heard Lil snort behind me as I watched Mia disappear into her Bio. Class. A tall, sort of scrawny kid followed after her, almost eagerly, even with Lars giving him an exasperated look.

I frowned. I knew him from somewhere.

"How much longer are you going to keep this up?" Lil asked prodding me hard in my ribs.

"Ow. What?" Lil shook her head in disgust.

"You are so completely hopeless." And with that said she left for her Psych. Class.

"What?"

That left me confused for the rest of the day, trying to figure out what Lil had meant, but she didn't mention anything else about it.

"OH MY GOD!" I nearly fell off of my computer chair at the sound of Lilly's screeching.

"What?" I ran out of my bedroom to den to see what Lil was screeching about. "What?"

"Shut up and just watch." Lilly growled, looking furious.

I turned my attention to the television to where I saw Mia sitting in an armchair looking just about ready to be sick as she finished squeaking out whatever had originally upset my sister. **'****I****mean,****I****'****m****not****a****jock,****or****a****cheerleader,****or****one****of****the****smart****kids-**** '** I felt a weird sort of pang in my chest as she said that because she looked so sincere as she said it.

'**Oh,****'** Beverly said looking all doubtful and kind, **'****but****aren****'****t****you****one****of****the****smart****kids****though?****I****understand****one****of****your****classes****is****called****Gifted****and****Talented.****'**

'**Yes,****but****see,****'** Mia squeaked, **'****G&T****is****just****like****study****hall.****We****don****'****t****actually****do****anything****in****this****class**** – ****except****goof****around****because****the****teacher****is****never****there.****She****'****s****always****in****the****teachers****' ****lounge****across****the****hall****so****she****has****no****idea****what****we****'****re****doing.****Which****is****goofing****off.****'**

"How can she say that?" Lil screamed.

"Because it is basically true." I said with a shrug as I leant against the den wall, my arms crossed against my chest.

"How can _you_ say that?"

"How? Because it's true." She scowled at me.

"Lil," I said laughing, "we lock your boyfriend in the supply closet every class because of his violin. You and Mia spend most of your time talking, as well as half the class, while the rest of us play computer games. We're not the most studious bunch."

"Yeah, but now everyone is going to know that!" She snapped and yeah, ok, I had to agree with her on that.

"Look, Lil, just shut up. We just missed a whole question." I snapped back at her.

'**Mia,****didn****'****t****you****have****some****exciting****news****recently?****'** Beverly asked cheerfully, though I could see that this interview was taking a lot out of her, though she was trying to hide it behind a bright smile.

'**Oh.****Yes.****Well,****I****'****m****pretty****excited.****I****'****ve****always****wanted****to****be****a****big****sister.****'** Wait… what? Both Lil and my mouths dropped as one. **'****But****they****don****'****t****want****to****make****a****big****deal****out****of****it,****you****know.****It****'****s****just****going****to****be****a****very****small****ceremony****at****City****Hall,****with****me****as****their****witness****because****they****want****to****keep****it****small,****you****know.****'**

"Oh…my…god." Lil said slowly. "Oh…my…GOD!"

"Wow. I guess that explains a lot."

"Like?" Lil asked.

"Well, her freaking out about…"

"Everything."

"For the last couple of weeks, yeah. But I think she's had some pretty good reasons for all the wigging out that she's been doing these past few weeks." Lilly pulled a face to what I was saying even though I knew some part of her brain, small as it probably is, agreed with me.

The interview finished with Beverly doing this long finishing speech.

"Oh…God!" Lil said as she buried her face into her hands.

"It really could have been a whole lot worse." I said, trying to soothe her or rather try and keep her temper that was near exploding point from doing just that, exploding.

"How?" Lilly demanded furiously.

"She could have reminded the whole of America that she is illegitimate." I pointed out because that was all I could think to suggest.

"Yeah, but now all of America is going to know about her having a baby brother or sister born in July. Not to mention all the stuff she said about our school and-and HOW DARE SHE CALL US A BUNCH OF FREAKS!"

"Ow, my ears. What is your problem?"

But Lil ignored me as she snatched up the phone and dialled, what I'm guessing was Mia's number.

"What do you mean, calling us a bunch of freaks?" Lil positively screamed into the phone. I could hear Mia distressed voice at the other end of the line.

"You basically informed the entire nation that the population of Albert Einstein High School is divided into various socio-economic cliques, and that you and your friends are too uncool to be in any of them." Lil yelled into the phone.

'Well, we are.' I heard Mia protested which only caused Lil to become even angrier.

"Speak for yourself!" I scowled at that, how could Lil be like this towards her best friend? "And what about G&T?" I couldn't hear Mia's response due Lil's shrieking.

"You just told the entire country that we sit in there and goof off because Mrs Hills is always in the teachers' lounge! What are you – stupid? You've probably got her into trouble."

By now our parental unit had come out into the den, both looking tired and worried, Mom saying something about Mazel Tov.

I winced as Lil gave a loud, frustrated scream before snapping into the phone, "My parents say to tell your mother mazel tov."

"Lilly." Mom said looking at Lil with a great deal of disapproval.

"What? Did you watch her interview at all?"

"Yes, we did. And I personally," Dad said, looking at Mom, "agree with a lot that Mia said."

"You did?" Lil yelled. "How?"

"Because she is right." Mom said soothingly. "Boys and girls who excel in sport are treated with a great deal more respect in our society than say, people who possess intelligent minds. Aren't you always saying that your voice is commonly ignored in the classroom in favour for the "popular" kids?"

"Yeah, but she called us freaks."

"Lil, you're always calling yourself and Mia freaks? What's the big deal? And," when she tried to interrupt me, "you've called Mia a freak on _your_ show. On several occasions."

"I-I didn't mean it. Not like how she meant it."

"Lilly, Mia was only telling the truth. Or how the truth appears to her." Dad said, rubbing his temple. "You can't be mad at her for doing simply what you yourself try to do with your show." Lil let out another frustrated shriek.

"None of you understand." She yelled at us before storming for her room.

"Are you absolutely certain that she isn't really an alien disguised in human form and my real sister is stuck on the mothership?" I asked after a moment silence. Both my parents gave me the _look_ that clearly told me not to push it.

"I'll just go to my room, shall I?" I said, rolling my eyes at the pair of them.

Sighing, I shut my door behind me as soon as Pavlov came in after me.

I flicked on to my computer and saw that Mia was on.

_**CracKing:**_ Hey. Just saw you on TV. You were good.

_**FtLouie:**_ What are you talking about? I made a complete and utter ass of myself. And what about Mrs Hill? They're probably going to fire her now.

I stared at what she had written, feeling the despair in her words.

_**CracKing:**_ Well, at least you told the truth.

Oh yeah, like that was going to make her feel better about her interview.

_**FtLouie:**_ But all these people are mad at me now! Lilly's furious!

I rolled my eyes at my sister stupidity and jealousy towards Mia.

_**CracKing:**_ She's just jealous because you had more people watching you in that one fifteen minute segment than all the people who've ever watched all of her shows put together.

_**FtLouie:**_ No, that's not why. She thinks I've betrayed our generation, or something, by revealing that cliques exist at Albert Einstein High School.

_**CracKing:**_ Well, that, and the fact that you claim you don't belong to any of them.

_**FtLouie:**_ Well, I don't.

I felt myself smirk at that, shaking my head at her bluntness, while also wanting to give her a hug, which of course I couldn't do.

_**CracKing:**_ Yes, you do. – I typed back – Lilly likes to think you belong to the exclusive and highly selective Lilly Moscovitz clique. Only you neglected to mention this, and that has upset her.

_**FtLouie:**_ Really? Did she say that?

I could almost hear the surprise in her tone and smiled slightly.

_**CracKing:**_ She didn't say it, but she's my sister. I know how she thinks.

Which is true, most of the time I did know what Lil was thinking, though usually those times I honestly hadn't want to know because it usually involved me having bruised shins.

_**FtLouie:**_ Maybe. I don't know, Michael.

_**CracKing:**_ Look, are you all right? You were a mess at school today… although now it's clear why. That's pretty cool about your mom and Mr Gianini. You must be excited.

_**FtLouie:**_ I guess so. I mean, it's kind of embarrassing. But at least this time my mom's getting married, like a normal person.

_**CracKing:**_ Now you won't need my help with your Algebra homework any more. You'll have your own personal tutor right there at home.

Oh god, why the hell did I type that? Why?

_**FtLouie:**_ Well, I don't know. – Mia typed back, rather quickly actually, - I mean, he's going to be awfully busy for a while, moving in, and then they'll be the baby and everything.

I don't know why but reading the word baby suddenly had me grinning like an idiot.

_**CracKing:**_ God. A baby. I can't believe it. No wonder you were wigging out so badly today.

I'd be wigging out too if my parents informed me I was going to have another sibling. I have a hard enough time with the sibling I already have, thanks!

_**FtLouie:**_ Yeah, I really was. Wigging out, I mean.

Why I typed what I did next I have no idea, but if deserve me slamming my head with a door.

_**CracKing:**_ And what about the thing this afternoon with Lana? That couldn't have helped much. – Why couldn't I have just shut up here? Why did I have to keep babbling on? Why? – Though it was pretty funny, her thinking we were going out, huh?

Why the fuck did I type that? Why? God, I am such a special moron!

_**FtLouie:**_ Yeah, she's such a headcase. I guess it's never occurred to her that two people of opposite sex can just be friend, with no romantic involvement.

I smacked my forehead against my desk. Crap! Crap! Crap!

Why the fuck couldn't I say the right thing to her when I'm trying to get close to her?

_**CracKing:**_ Yeah. – ok, think Michael, think, since you fucked that up royally – listen, what are you doing Saturday night?

Oh wow, nice save Moscovitz. I smacked my head once again against my desk.

_**FtLouie:**_ I don't know. Why?

Well, at least she wasn't giving me the finger, telling me to get lost.

_**CracKing:**_ Because it's Halloween, you know. I thought a bunch of us could get together and go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show over at the Village Cinema…

Since when was this my idea? God, what if she says no, what if I had stuff up again, what if…

_**FtLouie:**_ Can I get back to you? – yes – I may have a family commitment that evening.

But it wasn't a no. I looked at my alarm clock and saw that it was quite late.

_**CracKing:**_ Sure. Just let me know. Well, see you tomorrow.

_**FtLouie:**_ Yeah. I can't wait.

_**CracKing:**_ Don't worry. You were telling the truth. You can't get in trouble for telling the truth.

She logged off after that and I felt my stomach sink. She was going to get such a hard time tomorrow because of that interview. Not for the first time I wished she was of my age and so we would be in more than just one class together. Then at least I could give her more support than, instead of being this background support figure.

I sighed heavily. I could see that Tuesday were going to become my second least favourite day of the week.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I'm not a 100% happy with how this chapter turned out, but there is only so much tweaking you can do. 'groan' talk about tweaking, the about of tweaking I'm had to do with chapter 10 of this fic, gods it was a nightmare! Though throwing in a Mia/Michael scene has helped get the pace moving again. I was desperate to get started on Halloween but because I keep on adding all my own little clips and trying to fill this fic with as much detail as I possibly can I keep getting stuck!  
>I blame Michael and his thinking too muchness! It's all his fault! Though this fic isn't quite so long as my first CracKing (there's like twenty pages in length difference).<br>Oh god, three is turning into a nightmare! So much over-thought and doubt, not to mention gruchy, jealous teenaged boy angst, which is definately new (for me to write) as well as interesting and also pretty exhausting.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Tuesday morning Lil was still in a foul mood about the interview last night, so that when Mia's limo pulled up this morning, Lil simply gave her silent treatment, which caused Mia's shoulders to sag at.

"Morning." I said.

"Morning" Lars greeted us (or rather me. I don't think he has that high of an opinion of Lil) as we sat down in our respective seats, which at the moment was Lil sitting as far away from Mia as possible and me sitting next to Lars, opposite Mia.

"Hi." She still sounded down and Lil's attitude towards her wasn't helping.

"Hey," I said distracting her from the depressed look that she was sending Lil's way, "Do you want me to go over your algebra homework for you?" she looked a little startled by my offer, but after a quick search through her bag, she handed me a piece of paper with algebra problems on it, with the right amount of written solutions beneath each problem. I leant back in my seat and went over her solutions, pleased to see that she had done them all correctly.

I could feel her watching me anxiously.

"Well," I said slowly, forcing my face into a frown, which immediately caused Mia's eyes to widen and bite down hard upon her bottom lip, "your writing is still all over the place, but otherwise…" I drew it out, just because it was fun to watch her eyes grow wider, "you did them all right." I grinned at her as I handed back the paper, watching her face break into a delighted smiled.

"Really?" She sounded so happy.

"Yup. You just need to stop writing your solutions so small and squashed together, ok." She nodded her head up and down, looking happy and pleased with herself.

I heard Lil give a snort from where she was scrunched up on the other side of the Limo, but Mia and I both ignored her and Lars just kept on drinking from his large cup of coffee.

"So did you have any trouble with any of this or with any other questions?" I asked her.

"Um, well," she pulled out her algebra text book and showed me the next part of the chapter that they were currently working and pointed to a problem that I could immediately understand why she might have trouble with it.

"Ok, with this one, what you have to do is this…"

And we spent the rest of the way to school talking about how to do the problem, so that when we got there, she had a pretty good idea of what to do.

"We'll go over it more thoroughly in G&T, ok?"

"Ok," she nodded eagerly enough before she disappeared for her homeroom.

I watch her go before heading for my own.

"Please tell me that was you asking her out." I jumped slightly at Felix's voice suddenly speaking from my elbow.

"What?"

"That was you asking her out, right?"

"No, that was me offering to go over her algebra questions with her." Felix smacked me over the back of the head.

"Hurry up and ask her out already, dude, what's taking you so lo…" I rolled my eyes at him.

"I have asked her." That stopped him for a moment.

"Wha? Seriously?" he looked a little too surprised for my liking. I took a leaf out of Lil's book and kicked him in the shins.

"Ow. Sorry, I was just a bit surprised, that's all." I scowled at him.

"So, what did she say?"

"That she'd get back to me."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nope."

"Dude…"

"She hasn't said no." I pointed out calmly.

"True." He admitted, then he grinned.

"Her interview was rather… interesting." I pulled a face at him.

"She was telling the truth." I said shrugging as we walked into our homeroom.

"That's not going to stop her from getting a hard time about it, though." He reminded me.

"Yeah, I know." I sighed and tried to ignore Josh and his cronies laughing loudly as they recited bits and pieces of Mia's interview.

I sighed again and shook my head.

"Oh god, she was fired." Mia whispered as we both walked into the G&T room and found it empty. "Oh God. Oh God." Mia mumbled over and over again.

"Well, whose fault is that?" Lil snapped at her both she stalked over to her desk. Mia's shoulders slumped for a moment before moving over to her side and asked, "Can I read it?"

I frowned. What was going on now?

"No." Lil snapped at her angrily.

I rolled my eyes at her as I sat down on Mia's other side, pulling out my laptop.

"Can I read just one page?"

"No."

"Just one sentence?"

"No."

"What are you two on about?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"Lilly's book on the socio-economic division that exists within AEHS walls." Mia explained. Oh yeah, that book.

I rolled my eyes again.

"Oh, that." I said with a snort, before leaning over and whispered to Mia in a stage whisper so that Lil could hear, "I offered to publish the first chapter of her book on _Crackhead_, but for some strange reason she doesn't want me too."

"Because I want my book to be published with a legitimate publishing agency," Lilly snapped at me, "not with some second class webzine."

"Or she hasn't actually written all that much of her so called "book"." I added causing Lil to give a frustrated sort of scream.

"Am I in it?" Mia asked, looking a little sick, her eyes wide with worry, "your book? Am I in it?"

"If you people don't stop bothering me about my book, I'm going to fling myself off the side of the school's water tower."

"Oh, would you? Really?" I asked sweetly. "Please do, don't let us be the deciding factor for your skydive." Lilly scowled at me while Mia just looked at her with a sceptical expression written on her face.

Lil opened her mouth to say something but couldn't for just at that moment Mrs. Hill walked in. She didn't look particularly upset or anything, maybe a bit annoyed but no more really than usual.

Mia let out a little relieved sigh beside me, smiling widely up at me as she said happily, "she wasn't fired."

"Told you that she wouldn't be fired." I said, returning her smile. I heard Lil give a snort but again we ignored her.

Anyway, I guess that, even though Mrs. Hill wasn't fired, she was probably given a strong warning because she told us, rather sharply to get to work and that there would be no talking before sitting down at her desk, where she stayed, basically without moving for the whole class, though you could tell she was as bored as us the rest of us.

The worse thing of all though, was the fact that we couldn't lock Boris and his damn violin away in the closet anymore, so we had to spend a whole hour listening to Bartok!

Seriously there can be nothing worse than that!


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"Are you going be a bitch toward her today?" I asked Lil as we waited for Mia's Limo to come and pick us up for school. Lil sniffed at my comment.

"Seriously, Lil, like she's not getting a hard enough time already because of her interview without you ripping into her."

Lil scowled up at me.

"Don't…."

"Limo's here." I said quickly as the limo pulled up.

I grabbed the limo's door handle and opened only to have Lil shoved past me and got in.

I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

"You're welcome." But there was no reply from her, which was odd.

I moved to step into the limo, when I saw what was causing my sister who was sitting beside Mia to be in sort of ga-ga state.

A tall, sort of, I guess the only word for it is buff, boy with longish blonde hair that fell into a pair of brilliant blue eyes was sitting opposite Mia beside Lars in my general seat.

I paused in the limo doorway as I stared at the boy.

"Hi." Mia greeted me. She was showing absolutely no interest in the boy sitting opposite her(Thank God), who gave me a sort of warm welcoming smile before going back to inspecting the buttons that decorated the limo's interior.

"Hey," I said as I got in, sitting myself down between her and Lil, trying to put as much distance between my clearly ga-ga sister and the boy. Who, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out who he was or why he was here in the limo with us.

Turning to Mia, I started, "whose that…"

"Oh, right." Her face scrunched up as she eyed the boy with a look I well recognised. It was the same look I sent in Lil's direction when I was sure that she wasn't looking. "Michael, Lilly, this is my cousin Hank," I don't even want to go into the relief that I felt when she said word 'cousin'.

"Hank," she turned to her cousin, who was smiling at us pleasantly, though I couldn't help but think he looked a little… slow? "this is my best friend Lilly Moscovitz and her brother, Michael."

"Pleasure." He replied with this big smile and thick accent.

I raised an eyebrow at Lars, who was wearing one of his infamous looks as he drank deeply from his coffee cup. I noticed that the size of his cup of coffee was larger than usual.

"So Hank," Lilly said with all bright smiles and fluttering eyes that had my eyebrows rising even higher up my forehead, "What brings you to New York City?"

"Well, to visit my Aunt Helen and Mia of course. They haven't visited the homestead in real long while." I heard a discreet murmur from Mia that sounded like, "Ha, wonder why." She was slouched beside me, looking more than a little miserable.

"Are you staying long?" more eye fluttering. What the hell is wrong with my sister, this is seriously freaking me out!

"Only til after the wedding." Lilly looked momentarily confused and Mia on my other side, sunk even further into her seat.

"And when is that?" Lil asked.

"This Saturday night, Ma'am." You could see Lil liked that, being called Ma'am by this twit. And this Saturday, Halloween?

Dammit.

I looked down at Mia, who looked, if possible, even more down.

It was a sort of strange drive to school. Mia was quiet and deep inside her own thoughts; Lars was just absorbed with his coffee which I think is his survival tactic to putting up with hormonal teenagers all day, five days a week and I was trying to ignore Hanks loud, deeply accented voice as he spoke loudly to Lil who replied just as loudly, her eyelashes fluttering sickeningly back at him. The whole time I sat there thinking as I watched the two of them go at it, that Boris was completely and utterly screwed and that this guy had absolutely no idea how he must appear towards girls because he seemed to be completely oblivious to Lil's obvious… attraction (?) in him. That or he swings for the other team, but I think it's more he's just oblivious.

We pulled up at school and the moment that Hank stepped out of the limo, he was already turning heads. Girls around us stared at him with open mouths and swooning, while their boyfriends shot Hank death looks, all of which he was happily oblivious to as he bounced excitedly by Mia or rather dragged her excitedly up the front steps, with Mia wearing a resigned look as he did so.

Lilly watched them head in the direction of the front office with a pout.

"You have a boyfriend." I reminded her coolly, a boyfriend who I could see coming up the steps behind us, looking mildly confused as to why Lil hadn't waited for him.

"Your point?" Lil snapped at me. I just stared back her, feeling rather deadpan while thinking, yup, Boris is _so_screwed.

"Morning Lilly." Boris said as he came to join us. Lil just looked him over, hmphed and stalked off for her locker.

"Um," Boris said looking from Lil's stalking off back to me, looking nervous and confused, "What was that about?"

"That was my sister being her normal, unkind self." I patted his shoulder sympathetically. He opened his mouth, obviously to argue against that statement, but I shrugged and walked off for my locker.

"Who's farmer boy? The guy who is following the Princess around like a little lost puppy?" Felix asked as he came into English and sat down in the desk beside me.

"Her cousin." I said quickly.

"Lucky for you." said an arrogant voice near by laughed.

"Ignore him" Felix muttered with a shake of his head. Like I needed to be told, I wasn't going to give Josh Richter the satisfaction by glaring at him.

"Why is her cousin here?" Felix asked once our class work was set (Essay writing, god I hate writing essays.).

"For her Mom and Mr G's wedding."

"Huh? When's that?"

"This Saturday apparently." Felix looked perplexed

"Halloween? They're getting married on Halloween?"

"Apparently."

"Damn." I looked at him in surprise.

"What?" He gave me a look of 'are you stupid?'.

"She can't come to _Rocky__Horror__Show_ with you if she has to go to her mother's wedding."

"We're going to the midnight showing." I replied, but I still had my doubts about her coming. I felt my heart sink at the thought of her not coming on Saturday.

Though when I heard Felix muttered, "Who gets married on Halloween?" I had to fight hard to keep my laughter under control.

"Helen Thermopolis." I replied and Felix gave a small snort of laughter.

The day moved slowly until G&T when Mia came meet outside of it, looking frantic.

"Have you seen my cousin?"

"Um, no." I said frowning, watching her bite down hard upon her lip. "Why?" I asked.

"I can't find him anywhere." She groaned as we walked into class.

"When was the last time you saw him?" I asked, thinking he couldn't possibly have gotten far.

"Um, in the caff, he and…" she trailed off and suddenly looked around the classroom widely, searching.

"What?"

"Lilly isn't here!" and for some reason that was causing her to panic more.

"So?"

"She was the last person I saw him with!" she was freaking out now.

"Oh." Was all I could think to say.

"Look, its fine. Lil is probably just showing him more of the school." I was lying through my teeth but it seemed to calm her down for a bit, that is until Boris started asking everyone in G&T if they had seen Lilly and Mia started wearing this looked that had 'guilt' written all over it.

"How are you not worried?" Mia muttered to me as she did the equations I had set for her to do, "Your sister has become a two-timer AND a class ditcher all in one day!" she said as she looked up at me with her wide grey eyes that were demanding an answer from me.

"Because there is nothing to be worried about." I assured her.

"How can you say that? How can you be laughing?" Because that's what I had been doing through most of her panicky; laughing. "They could have been kidnapped by Libyan terrorists!" I could help it, I cracked up at that. Mia glared at me, but it was half hearted.

"That's unlikely." I chuckled.

"How do you know?"

"Because no Libyan terrorist would kidnap my sister, she'd be the one kidnapping them and then featuring them on her show, tied up in some basement somewhere." This got the desired affect. Mia smiled before shaking her head.

"No, I'm serious."

"So am I. Look," I said calmly, "I think it's probably more reasonable to assume that they're enjoying an afternoon session at the Sony IMAX." She looked a little doubtful at first, but I could see she was starting to calm down and I think, starting to come around to my idea of what the two of them were up to, rather than them being abducted by Libyan terrorist. Honestly, where does this girl get this stuff?

"Poor Boris." She said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Huh?" How could she say that when we were being subjected to Mahler? Not even locking him in the supply closet is enough to shut up the mournful tune, a bunch of us had to resort to sneaking off the to the Gym hall, stealing a couple of gym mats to shove up against the closet door in the vain hope of shutting out the dreadful noise. Do you have any idea how heavy those mats are?

The guy was seriously down about my sister being missing. And missing it looked like, with a guy. An extremely good looking one at that.

"He'll get over it." I said, though I knew I wouldn't get over Mia being with some hot guy so easily either. I might not go around moping about it, but I definitely wouldn't be happy about it. Though, I remembered how, well, down I had felt when I heard Mia was going to last Saturday dance with Josh Richter and I felt my initial feelings towards the whole matter change somewhat.

"But I'll talk to her tonight, ok." I added and Mia smiled at me. Oh, that was going to be a fun conversation.

"She's going to kick you for prying into her "business"."Mia said softly.

I stared up at the ceiling, groaning inwardly.

"Don't I know it? Listen, if you don't hear from me or see me tomorrow, you know what has happen, call the police." Mia laughed hysterically at that.

"I doubt she'd kill you." I looked at her deadpanned.

"This is my sister remember. Mercy is not in her vocabulary." This caused Mia to giggle some more.

"Well, I hope she doesn't kill you. That'd make me very sad." She said as she tried to get over her giggling fit.

"Thanks," I said, because I couldn't think what else to say. She just giggled some more and that was basically how the rest of the lesson went.

I didn't see Mia for the rest of the day or in the afternoon, due to my punishment of fighting with Josh last week.

On the bright side because now all the staff computers now work! I honestly have to wonder what kind of idiot their current IT man must be, since he clearly has no clue about how group policies actually works.

But anyway, all staff computers are now working and I'm being paid for my efforts for fixing them with chocolate bars. Yeah, I know, this is suppose to be my punishment for misbehaving, aka starting a fight, but the Maths and English staff room computers have been in a real mess for months, some of them couldn't even be logged on to from time to time.

In the past week I have received more chocolate bars for fixing computers than I ever received in the days when I was still trick-or-treating.

I might be getting somewhere with this.

Anyway, I went home around five with more chocolate bars than I could possibly eat. As I enter my building, contemplating where I was going stash the chocolate bars without my sister finding when lo and behold who should be in front of me heading for the elevator.

I picked up my speed and tapped her on the shoulder causing her to give out this god awful squeal.

"MICHAEL! What is your problem, you sociopath!"

"Hmmm, let me see, how bout the fact that my sister became a two-timer and class-ditcher all in one day."

Lilly scowled at me.

"Oh grow up." She said snidely at me before she turned to enter the elevator, punching our floor number. I hopped in beside her.

"So, not denying that you are now a class-ditcher and a two-timer, huh?" Another glare.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't, not really." Ok, maybe a little, a part of me, a very small part I might add, was a tiny, minuscule bit worried about her, "But Mia was worried about you. And the fact that, you went off with Hank without telling her." I looked down at her, "I'm guessing you were with Hank."

"What's it to you?" she snapped defensively.

"Well, it's kind of rude to just go off without telling people, especially if you're taking their cousin with you. Mia was worried sick about what might be happening to pair of you?"

"Were we being murdered by the Chinese Mafia?" she asked. I rolled my eyes.

"No, just kidnapped by Libyan terrorist." Lilly rolled her eyes as she muttered something about Mia's imagination and over-analysing everything.

"Look it was no big deal; I was just showing him around." Lilly said with a shrug.

"That's fine, when you tell someone that you are and it's not in school hours." I replied in annoyance.

"God, you sound like Mom and Dad."

"Hmmm, yeah and I wonder what they'll say about your disappearing act today." Not that I had any real plans to tell them, but Lil, just to make sure I didn't, kicked me, hard, in the shins.

"Fuck." I said, wincing. That was going to leave a bruise.

"You had at least better call Boris." I said as I limped out of the elevator once it had reached our floor.

She shot me an impatient look.

"Why?"

"Because he was worried about you too. Do you know how bad it looks for him when his girlfriend goes off, without telling anyone, with another guy, I mean…"

"Oh shut up. It wasn't like that. Geez, what's with you of late? You never cared about this sort of thing before." Lil snapped at me and I felt actually a little stung.

"I did care." I replied, "you just didn't have a boyfriend back then for me to worry about."

"You worry about Boris?" No, I'm more worried about what you might have possibly gotten up to this afternoon with Hank, but I didn't say that. One shattered shin is enough to tell me that it was time to call it quits. I'm not suicidal, after all.

"Just call him ok." I said with a sigh as I opened our front door and headed straight for my room; I had had another of Lil for the moment.

As much as I really don't like the music Boris's plays, he isn't actually a bad guy and in a lot ways, he is way too good for my sister as clearly proved just then by her lack of caring towards his feelings by her afternoon disappearing act with another guy. A hot one, at that.

I quickly emailed Mia to say that Lil was back, which she return with a just as quick reply saying that Hank had return to the hotel around the same time. You could almost hear the relief in her words even though she was still quite upset with Lil for disappearing with her cousin like that.

I stayed in my room (except when dinner was called for) until about ten.

I had been working on an article of _Crackhead_ for hours but getting no further than a paragraph due to a serious case of writer's block.

Deciding that it was time for a break, I got up and headed for the den, thinking I might try and catch a Star Trek Marathon or something. But as I walked into the den I saw that my hopes to spend a quiet couple of hours before I went to bed watching Star Trek immediately dashed at the sight of my sister.

Mind you, not that she was paying me any attention as I stood in the doorway of the den, she was too intent on the phone conversation she was having.

"I just wanted people to be able to see the real Mia Thermopolis." Lil was saying into the phone, using her 'I'm more superior than thee' voice, though whatever was said next from whoever was on the other line, though I had a pretty good idea, immediately shot down that superior front.

She actually sounded almost hurt when she said, "Mia," I was right, "how can you even think such a thing?" I would really like to know what the 'thing' was because whatever it was had Mia annoyed enough to be angry with Lil about it and apparently able to shot Lil's pride down a couple of notches.

"Would you have agreed to it?" Lil suddenly asked.

I wanted to get closer, to know what the heck they were talking about, but didn't because just then Lil stare me and gave me a death glare, warning me that if I came any closer she'd blacken my other ankle. Which since I already had one multi-colour ankle, curtsey of her, already today, I wasn't in the mood for another.

"There you go." Lil said and clearly that particular disagreement had ended and Lil hung up shortly afterwards.

"What was that all about?" I asked bewildered as Lil moved to walk past me for her room, but I blocked her way.

"Nothing."

"Lil…"

"Oh fine, she wasn't happy with the interview I did with her."

"When did you interview her?" I asked, trying to think of when the two had a moment long enough alone to do an interview.

"When she was over last weekend." I frowned, still confused.

"When did you have the time? Not to mention the quiet to interview her?" I asked still bewildered. I saw Lil go a little red, almost shamed face as she suddenly became interested in her toes.

"Lil," I said a little severely.

"Ok, fine, I interviewed her while she was asleep."

"You what?"

"She sleep-talks." Lilly snapped as if that was some kind of defence.

"Have you ever heard of a term called 'invasion of privacy'!" I demanded.

"There was no other way! She would never agree to simply sit down and let me interview her, so I had to taken action in the only way I could."

"By humiliating her publically? I asked dryly.

"NO! Why can't either of you understand that this was the only way…"

"For people to see the real Mia Thermopolis?" I quoted her.

"Yes!"

"By using footage of her asleep?"

"Sleep-talking."

"Oh and that makes it so much better." I snorted, "Seriously, how could you Lil? As if she isn't getting a hard enough time already with her other interview, and now she's going to have to deal with yours that she doesn't even remember giving."

"I didn't ask her anything bad." Lilly defended, "I just asked her important stuff! Stuff that Beverly Bellerieve didn't have the brains to ask." Ah, so much for Beverly being Lil's all time hero and role-model. See how quick she is to her views on something? Or someone?

"Like?" Because I actually was curious.

"Like what her first act when she becomes ruler of Genovia will be," I felt my stomach twist a little at the word 'ruler', but forced myself to ignore it, "what she hates most about being a princess, about her formal introduction to the people of Genovia in December," something I had completely forgotten about, "and you know stuff like that."

"Her responses to all that were?" If Mia could give coherent answers to those types of questions when she was asleep then why the hell couldn't she remember kissing me that one time?

Because it was fever induced, the smart-arsey part of my brain pointed out. I pointedly ignored it.

"Um, mostly she spoke about building an animal shelter in her castle." I snorted.

"Her grandmother will love that!"

"Mia said that she'd be dead by then, so she didn't care." I laughed at that, such a simple answer.

"Anything else?" I asked curiously.

"Only that she thinks that because no one at school likes her," Lil pulled a face at that. As did I, "no one in Genovia will either."

"That's silly." I said immediately, feeling suddenly defensive and protective of Mia all of a sudden. Ok, maybe it wasn't sudden or unexpected, but I did feel like beating a few heads together for making Mia feel like that.

"I know that." Lil grumbled, looking huffy.

"So, I'm guessing this has all be aired huh?" I said after a moment's silence.

"Ah, yeah."

I sighed and rolled my eyes towards the ceiling. Well, there was nothing to be done about that now. And on the bright side, only like fifteen people watch Lil's show, so… hopefully no big network worker was watching her show tonight.

"Hey," I was pulled out of my thoughts by Lil who was heading out the den in the direction of, I'm guessing, her room.

"Hmmm." I asked but almost immediately regretted asking when I saw the wicked grin pass over Lil's face.

"Don't abuse the knowledge I just gave you."

"What knowledge?" I asked bewildered.

The knowledge that Mia wanted to build an animal shelter in her castle once she becomes ruler and her grandmother is dead or the knowledge that she thinks no one at school (or in Genovia) likes her. Why the hell would I abuse this knowledge?

I saw Lil rolling her eyes at me in disgust at my confusion.

"You are such a dope! I give you some knowledge that could solve and answer all your problems and you don't even remember what it is!"

"Then tell me again so that I will? And what problems?" I got a deadpan look for that one.

"No, figure it out for yourself!" and with that she stalked off in an even greater huff.

"Well that was helpful." I said sighing, finding myself no longer in a Star Trek mood, I stalked back to my room and flopped on to my bed, Pavlov flopping himself immediately over my stomach.

Why can't I ever get a straightforward answer out of Lil?

I swear, she enjoys just sitting back and watching me struggle and suffer.

The sad thing is, I think she does.

I blame the parental unit. It's all their fault! They let the aliens abduct my real sister, leaving us with that horror down the hall.

I really need to "borrow" this latest episode of Lil's show, clearing this piece of "knowledge" she is alluding to, is somewhere in it. But still, why would I be abuse it? How could it possibly solve all my problems? Wait was she even referring to my problems with Mia or just problems in general…

Why can't my sister just be straightforward?

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> When I first read the second book and found out that Mia talked in her sleep, I always wondered, even though in here I've written Michael as saying its 'invasion of privacy', why he didn't just ask Mia how she trully felt about him when she asleep over at his because we clearly read in book two that she gives coherent answers to all the question's Lil askes her, even though if a couple of them were a bit left field.  
>I mean, it is sort of implied that he did see or at least know about Mia's interview with Lil, so why didn't the special moron figure out to ask her whether or not she felt the same way about him as he did about her?<br>My answer to this is, he's a special moron and the whole idea of asking her about her feeling for him while she was asleep, simply just didn't occur to him. Also book 3 (which is one of my favourite books in the series, by the way, after book 10 (of course)) wouldn't have occurred, though it would have spared a lot of heartbreak for him and he wouldn't have slept with Judith. And M&M would have been together a whole lot sooner!  
>Also another thing, writing for Hank is really, really hard! I blame him for all the trouble I had with the later chapers of this fic. As soon as he came on to the scene I kept running up against brick walls... also Michael wasn't helping either due to his dense about there might just be a possibility someone else likes Mia too! But we'll get to that later... obviously.<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Hank wasn't in the Limo with Mia when Lil and I got in. Surprisingly, Lil didn't seem to be overly bothered by his not being there. Maybe she was over her… whatever it was that had her disappearing off with him for several hours yesterday afternoon.

She didn't even ask Mia where he was, just sat down and started prattling about some new injustice in the world that she was going to solve… or think she will until she gets bored with the idea.

It wasn't until we got to school and Boris met us (Ok, Lilly rather) outside the front doors of school, looking absolutely delighted to see that it was only the three of us, but he still asked, "Where is Honk?" it took a moment for the three of us to figure out that when Boris said Honk, he actually meant Hank. His thick Russian accent, even though his English is perfect, made for some words harder to be understood than others.

"Honk – I mean, Hank – " I couldn't help grinning as Mia spluttered out Boris pronunciation for her cousin's name, then try to correct herself, "Is sick." Boris, if possible, looked even more delighted to hear this.

Lilly looked at this point mildly curious and asked what was wrong with him and Mia said it was because last night they went out for dinner with Mia grandparents, to this steakhouse and he ate a steak, which only proceed to confuse Boris and cause Lil and I to roll our eyes.

"Honestly they are all increasing the risk of heart disease and cancer because of all the saturated fats and cholesterol they all ate last night." Mia grumbled.

Once again Lil and I rolled our eyes.

This was a rant (and they are far and few between) that we'd heard before on multiple occasions of Mia trying to make Lil (and me, to a smaller extent) become a vegetarian. The chances of that actually happening is like the chances of Lil actually admitting that she is jealous of Mia, which is never going to happen. Also as much as I adore this girl, I like my meat and no matter how much nagging, begging and anything else is going to change that.

"You can also get protein from meat, you vegetarian nuthead. Protein that you are clearly in need of." Lil added as she poked Mia's side. "I swear one of these days your vegetarianism is going short-circuit your brain cells."

"Is not." Mia grumbled defensively. Boris, Lars and I stood back and watch the two of them bicker, something that seriously doesn't happen very often, but then Mia hadn't started standing up for herself until a couple of weeks ago. I wondered if this, them bickering, was going to become a more frequent occurrence in the future.

"Alright," Lars said because they had been at it for several minutes and they were gaining a audience, "All of you," he waved at us and the audience that were surrounding us, "are all late for homeroom. You two," he pointed at Lil and Mia who both had the mouths open as if to argue with him, "have made your points quite clear. You're a vegetarian and you're not going change that anytime soon." Lars said pointing at Mia before he pointed at Lil, "and you're omnivore and your not going to change that anytime soon either." he said to Lil, "You can't change each others views because you both think that your right. And you are, you are both right in the fact that you both eat what you wanted to eat. So live with it, both of you."

I chuckled as the two girls grudgingly accepted this and we all parted ways for our own homerooms.

For the rest of the day, up until it was time for G&T, was rather boring and mundane. G&T, like usual wasn't.

Mia met me outside the G&T classroom, gnawing heavily on her bottom lip.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked curiously.

"Have you seen Lilly?" she asked.

I frowned and shook my head, asking why; she (Mai) was looking for her.

"It just that Lars," she nodded to the big guy who was standing behind her, "just got a call from my mom who got a call from her mom, saying that Hank is missing from his hotel room and… yeah." She ended lamely.

"And Lil's done a disappearing act too, huh?" I asked as we walked into G&T.

Mia nodded.

"At first, I wasn't worried because we had a Presidential Fitness exam on today and Lilly always, um, disappears during those." She looked up at me sheepish, obviously wondering if I was going to rat Lil out to our parents. As if! But I swear girls have it so easy when it comes to getting out of Gym or any type of fitness school activity, all they need to say is the magic word of 'cramps' and gym teachers want absolutely nothing to do with them.

I've lost track of how many fitness events that I've (and Mia too) have had to suffer through while she's been allowed to either sit on the sidelines or allowed to go home because she has conveniently got her cramps.

It's seriously unfair, but anyway, Lil disappearing from gym is honestly not a great concern because it happens oh so frequently, but Lil being gone through lunch, now that's a completely different story.

"The nurse said that Lil had…" she went a little red in the face as she hesitated. So I took pity on her and finished her sentence for her.

"That she had really bad cramps and had to go home right?" She nodded while also giving me this look which I replied with a look that read 'I'm her brother, I have to live with her twenty-four/seven, honestly her having the cramps isn't the worst thing I have to put up with her'. And actually it isn't, Lil having the cramps is the only time of the month that she shuts up and is actually somewhat nice.

"So you're thinking that they've gone of together again, huh?" I asked watching as her head bounce up and down on her neck.

"Which is bad." She said with a groan as she buried her face in her hands.

"Yeah if only because we're going to have to listen to Mahler again." I agreed. She actually punched me in the arm for that, not hard but enough for me to know not to joke about the situation. I heard Lars sniggered nearby.

Ow." I said as I made a show of rubbing my arm, which caused her to freak out a little because she actually thought she had hurt me.

I grinned at her which had her then huff back at me as she stomped back into the G&T classroom with me chasing after her. I caught her arm.

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry. I realise this is serious," sort of, "and that we need to keep Boris occupied, for our ears sake at least." She gave me a deadpan expression and when she asked how we were going to do that, there was an obvious grumble in her voice.

"I invented this computer game for my computer graphics class. I can set him up to play that so he hopefully won't get overly upset by Lil's absence and won't connect any dots that she might be with Hank." I said with a shrug, but honestly I just wanted her to stop being cranky with me.

"You invented a computer game." She asked curiously as she sat down beside me as I got out my laptop and logged on.

"Uh huh. But I only got a B for it." I rolled my eyes at that before noting Mia looking at me in surprise.

"Only a B?"

"Uh huh." I said feeling a little confused as to what was amusing her so much and causing her mouth to turn upwards in a cheeky smile.

"Only people who get A's all the time say 'only a B'." she giggled and I realised I might have possibly insulted her, since she works so hard for her grades while I (and Lil) really, to put simply, don't. And yet somehow the both of us still managed to come out top of our classes despite the fact that we barely do any real study and really, don't work all that hard during class either.

"I'm sorry." I said feeling like a jerk though that feeling went when she just cocked her head to one side and looked at me with puzzled grey eyes.

"Why are you sorry?"

I opened my mouth to explain, to make her understand that I hadn't meant, if I had, to put her down, though in truth she didn't look insulted and she had meant the comment more as a joke than a reprime.

I was at a lose for words but was luckily saved by the arrival of Boris, who was late only because he had been to see Gupta about joining the school band.

"Hey Boris," I called before he could even head in the direction of the supply closet.

"Come play Michael's computer game that was so unjustly marked as only a B." Mia called, grinning at me teasingly at the last bit.

I fought back the childish desire of sticking my tongue out at her, if only because we were surrounded by people and Boris, wearing a confused expression on his face, but headed in our direction nonetheless.

"What is the game?" Boris asked looking even more confused when I motioned for him to sit down on my other side.

"Decapitate the boy band, first level featuring the Backstreet Boys." This was of course lost on Boris, but I heard Mia giggle on my other side.

I quickly went through the rules of my game before pushing my laptop in front of Boris but at angle that both Mia and I could still both see the screen.

After a few minutes of watching Boris hurl axes and knives and other stuff at various members of the Backstreet Boys (Boris was actually surprisingly good at this game, already having decapitated more heads then had been previous loped off by others who had had a go, quickly moving up the levels to start loping of the heads of 98 degrees.) I felt a tap on my shoulder and quickly turned my attention to Mia, who was watching Boris lop of Nick Carters head with an almost sick fascination.

She looked up at me with a slight grin.

"You only got a B for this? How come? It's cool!" Which is something that you don't hear every day from a teenaged girl, especially when the decapitation of Backstreet Boys heads is concerned.

"Mr Robertson took points off because he felt it wasn't violent enough for today's market."

"Does he want your games to be more like Doom or Resident Evil?" I could see Lars raise an eyebrow at that, giving me a questioning look

"Guess so." I said with a grin as a sent a sheepish shrug in his direction.

He rolled his eyes and I knew that he had figured out who was to blame for Mia knowing and understanding the contents of those two games and other games like them.

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a terribly bad influence on her, but between me and Lil, who do you think is the worst influence between us?

Also Mia's actually pretty good at shot-them-up, monster/zombie games, once she's calmed down and got herself set in the right game mode.

G&T hour was actually rather fun.

Mrs Hill was finally allowing us to talk and she didn't seem to be overly bothered by Mia and Boris taking turns of murdering boy bands on my laptop (Boris is good, but Mia completely smashed him. She was up to decapitating 'N Sync (they are the last level in my game) members' heads off in no time at all! Lars was more than a little amused by this I saw when I noticed him silently chuckle as Mia gave a triumphant little cry of delight when she beat Boris's score.)

It was kind of amusing just watching them go at it. I think, with some time and being away from Lil, I think that the two of them could actually become quite good friends.

Just as I was thinking this there was a scream followed by an annoyed yell from across the hall, from the teacher's lounge.

We all sort of looked at each other before all of us darted out of the classroom and across the hall to the teachers' lounge to see what the heck was going on. We found Mr. Patterson, my trig teacher, curse all seniors in there.

"Bloody seniors! Just because it's their last year here they think they can just do whatever they want." He was growling furiously, shooting cold, furious glares in my and the few other senior who were in G&T direction.

"What's going on?" Mrs Hill asked as she managed to push her way to the front of our class. We were quite successfully blocking the teachers lounge doorway.

"Some bloody minded seniors put a foetal pig into the mini-fridge and the stole all the…" he trailed off at that when he noticed just how many kids were gathered in the doorway, all looking curious and amused by the fuss that he and the other teachers in there were throwing. Even though it wasn't said and they were never going to report it, I'm guessing what was stolen was the teachers' private stash of booze…

Wait, a foetal pig? Where the hell and how the hell did they get into the school?

Though there is that one in a jar at the back of the Chem. lab, just behind where Felix and I sit….wait, a minute.

I slapped my palm against my forehead.

Ah, crap! The moron! Wait, til I got my hands on him! What the heck did he think he was doing? Pulling a stunt like this? Probably thought it was a pretty funny Halloween prank, actually. Actually if I wasn't so pissed at him for stealing all the teachers' liquor, I'd be laughing with everyone else.

Or maybe not.

I just happen to look at Mia's face who was looking at the pig with those big sad eyes of her and I immediately felt bad for the poor, dead little thing.

It looked quite pathetic really, all pale and slightly shrunk and Mia looked about ready to puke. Without thinking I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around and pushed her through the crowd and back out into the corridor, where Lars had been forced to wait because he just couldn't fit his huge frame amongst the massing kids.

"Princess." He looked quite shocked to see just how pale Mia's face was.

"Are you alright?" his voice was filled with a surprising amount of concern. I mean, I knew that they got on alright but I hadn't realised just how serious Lars took his job as her bodyguard. I mean, of course, he took it very seriously, but there was genuine concern in his eyes as he came to see that she was ok.

"I'm fine. Really. Just the poor pig." Lars raised an eyebrow up at me. Obviously he heard what had been said within the teachers' lounge, pretty hard not too with all the yelling of how infuriating seniors were.

"That bad huh?"

"It was preserved," I explained, "but yeah, it still looked pretty bad."

"Sad." Mia muttered. I gave Mia's shoulders, which I still had my arm around a comforting squeeze before letting go of her before I did anything embarrassing, even though I knew no one (but Lars, and he was looking down the hall, probably on purpose since he had obviously seen my arm looped loosely around her shoulders.) would see us if I decided to take advantage of the situation, but that just didn't seem fair to Mia. Though she did look a tad disappointed that I removed my arm, but I tried not to look too deeply into that.

"That too." I added quickly as I was now feeling really rather sad for the poor, little pig and cursing Felix for putting it in the mini-fridge.

He knew well enough that Mia was a vegetarian and was a strong Animal's rights activist. But obviously he hadn't expected it to be discovered so quickly, clearly he hadn't counted on how strong the need for their afternoon booze was to help the teachers of AEHS to get through their afternoon classes.

So while everyone else was still huddled around the teachers lounge, Mia, Lars and I headed back to the G&T classroom and I set Mia up to play one of my other games, which soon had her smiling again.

"You know who did it, don't you?" Lars said while I showed Mia how to play my other game (it involved shotting varies vegetables at varies icon historical villains… I was extremely bored.)

"I have a pretty good idea." I replied. Lars looked amused while Mia looked up at me curiously, but didn't ask, possibly because she really didn't want to know who could be so cruel as to put a dead pig into the teachers' mini fridge. And steal all their alcohol, though I'm pretty sure Mia was more upset about the condition of the pig then anything else.

"You ok now?" I asked as I walked her to her Bio class. She gave a sort of half hearted nod, before smiling up at me, making my stomach somersault in away that only she can make it.

"Hey Mia." Mia looked away from me to stare at the tall, somewhat gangly youth who was sticking his head out of her Bio class.

"Oh, um, Hi Kenny." Mia replied. Kenny, who I now recognised from Computer Club, beamed brightly back at her in return… way too brightly. But it was completely lost on Mia as she looked away from him, back to me.

"I'll see you late Michael." She said with a final smile as she ducked around Kenny to enter the classroom, Kenny following immediately after her. Something about that and the smile that he was shotting in Mia's direction made my stomach clutch oddly. I don't know why, I mean he was just being friendly and I think I vaguely remembered Mia saying once that they were partners in Bio, but still there was something about the way he looked at her that just got on my nerves and made my stomach turn.

With a sour taste in my mouth I headed for Trig. I thumped Felix in the arm on my way there as he past me on his way to French. He shot me a sheepish look as I rolled my eyes at him.

Sometimes I really have no idea why I'm friends with that guy.

"So, where did you disappear off to today?" I asked as I leant against Lil's bedroom door. For a minute she simply ignored me, as she stared at her computer with a frown set on her face.

"What?" Lil asked, not looking from her computer. I rolled my eyes and she said I was hard of hearing.

"Where did you disappear off to today?" I repeat and she scowled at me.

"What is with you and Mia? Why are you both on my back at the moment?" she snapped, shooting her computer an annoyed glare.

I shrugged.

"Because you disappeared from school, without telling anyone where you were going and you took Mia's cousin along with you, without telling anyone. I think that's reason enough to get on your back about it."

"Oh please. Like you honestly care." Lil snorted and I felt annoyed that she thought that I didn't. Ok, yeah, Lil and I have never been particularly close siblings. Actually scratch that, we have our moments of sibling bonding, it just doesn't happen particularly often.

Lil is too independent and any of the times I've tried to be in any way brotherly towards her, she's lashed out against it. So I leave it, if she wants a brother, she can come and get me and I'll help her in any way I can, but other than that, I'm not putting my foot into it. But still, it does hurt some, to be told that she thinks that I don't care at all. I do care, I care a lot.

"Lil, of course I care. I'm your brother, I'm supposed to." Lil gave me one of her hard looks.

"Mom and Dad have finally got to you huh?" I fought the down the desire to strangle her. that's a brotherly feeling too, you know.

"Look, all I'm asking is for a heads up, ok, to just know where you are and in the event that something happens, that something goes wrong, I can come and get you. That's all, ok?"

Another hard look, then a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine."

"Great. Now where were you?"

The scowl was back.

"None of your business. Look, I'm fine, nothing happen, so you can kill you over-protectiveness older brother mode already. It's freaking me out."

"I'm sorry for showing that I care." I snapped feeling fairly pissed off.

"All I mean is, you should stop worrying about me and put your energy into something more… productive."

"Oh trust me, worrying about you_is_ productive." At wasting my time.

"No, it isn't." Lil shot back, "by worrying about me, you're being slow with other things." That got me and I simply gapped at her.

"Michael stop worrying so much about me and start worrying about yourself."

"Why?" I asked bewildered now.

"My god you are so oblivious! You haven't even noticed! You're not the only one who is interested!"

"Huh?"

She slapped her forehead.

"God! I can't deal with you when you are this dense!" she got up from her computer and stomped past me, muttering darkly, "and you see him almost every day and you haven't even noticed that he's interested in…" the last bit she grumbled and I couldn't make it out.

"What?"

"Nevermind." She snapped back at me as she headed for the den, though I did catch, "God, you are so blind!"

Blind? Blind about what? What was she on about?

Why did I have a feeling I was going to find out soon and that I wouldn't like it?

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This was a hard chapter to write, though, re-reading it and fixing up little bits and pieces, I have no idea why.  
>The amount of time I spent re-writing this chapter... 'groan', it's only when I threw in the Foetal Pig scene, which was originally not even in this chapter (it was originally not even meant to be in this fic, mainly because I had completely forgotten about it) its only when I read a couple of pages ahead in the book and found Mia mentioning it to Lil (Yes that tiny little mention over IM, set up that whole scene, lol), did I decide to see if I could work it in and hopefully get this stupid chapter flowing.<br>Well it got me over my writers block with this chapter and I'm actually quite pleased with the little scene between Michael and Mia (and Lars but he's in the background letting them have their moment, which really are so _few_.).  
>I think I have Michael interacting more often with Felix than I do with Mia, which is sad because I have so much fun (though I do love writing scenes with Felix in them. Why I am deciding to blame him for the Foetal Pig incident and not someone more obvious like Josh and his gang, I have no idea, but he is fun to write.) writng M&amp;M scenes.<br>Also obviously a little disclaimer here, I do not own DOOM or Resident Evil, I can't even sit through playing the games without freaking out, though I have watched the movies.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** Second last chapter for this fic everybody! YAY!  
>Please Enjoy! <p>

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven<strong>

That was the weirdest, most disturbing thing ever!

"Michael?" I could hear Judith saying as she prodded my shoulder, "are you alright?"

Am I alright? Some blonde hair freak just kissed my little sister! Completely out of the blue! What the fuck? Of course, I'm not ok!

I'm not ok with complete strange just randomly kissing my sister! I am definitely not ok with that! And I'm definitely not ok with the easy way he was talking to Mia either!

I don't know what pissed me off more, the fact that he kissed my sister, who had gone into a sort of ga-ga state or the fact that the guy was now after Mia, and she didn't look much better than Lil! Only instead of being ga-ga state she looked more struck dumb. What is it with her and blonde guys!

"I'm – going - to – kill – him!" I said in slow and evenly as I made to rise only to be dragged back to my sit by Paul who was sitting on my other side.

"Let me - "I started desperate to do some sort of bodily harm to the jerk, but Paul shook his head.

"Looks like your sister's boyfriend going to beat you to it." Paul said while I gave a 'huh' expression. Lil's what? Oh, right Boris!

Oh, no.

"Not so fast, hot shot."

Oh god.

I looked between them; Boris with his spindly arms, being more legs than anything else and skinny as a beanpole and the blonde stranger, with his neat clothes and gelled back hair, with obvious chest and arm muscles.

Boris was so totally screwed!

Except for the fact that 'Hot Shot' (by the by, who says that anymore?) just kept on walking, either too arrogant to pay Boris any mind or he just didn't hear Boris or guess that it was he that was being called 'Hot Shot'. I'm pretty sure it was the latter.

Anyway, what Boris did next, I honestly don't think anyone saw coming.

Boris stormed after Hot Shot, grabbed his arm, causing Hot Shot to halt and from where I was seating I saw that Hot Shot was confused by this.

"That's my girl you had your lips all over, pretty boy."

Again, oh god!

I don't know what I found more disturbing about that sentence; the fact that he called Hot Shot 'pretty boy' or the fact that he called Lil, my little sister, 'his girl'. I would never have thought that Lil would ever be classed as 'his girl' or anyone's girl actually. I always figured the she's always be her own girl, only person owning her was herself. Though in another way, which also disturbed me, I also found it kind of sweet. The guy clearly has it bad for my sister and my sister, I looked over to where she sat beside Mia, watching the whole thing play out with only a look of interest, no trace of concern written anywhere on her face. Unlike Mia's whose whole face just read concern (and also disbelief).

Hot Shot just kept looking at Boris with a look, 'what the heck are you doing' as he said "Huh", which actually sounded vaguely familiar.

When he was over a Mia's table, I hadn't been able to hear what was being said, but now that he was closer to my table, I suddenly felt like I knew him from somewhere, the voice was definitely familiar, but so was the face, but where had I seen him before?

Anyway, what happen next, was definitely something no one saw coming.

Boris punched him! Right in centre of Pretty Boy's face.

I had no idea he had it in him.

The sound of the impact was the sound of bones crunching and I knew I wasn't the only one cringing at the sound, though I was the only one who touched their nose (thanks to Richter, its now crocked) as well.

Except that it wasn't Pretty Boy's face that had crunched, it was Boris's knuckles. I had to hand it to him for not crying because it had sounded like a pretty painful crunch.

Oddly enough Hot Shot didn't throw a punch back, even more oddly the guy actually tried to help Mia take Boris to the Nurse.

Yeah, not my sister, no, it was Mia who was the one who had shot up from her seat after the crunch and had bolted (with Lars behind her, with a mildly amused look in his eyes) over. Tina and her bodyguard went over to stand by Boris as well, but not my sister who was looking over the scene now with as much interest as one would give watching a snail move. Which was none.

The guy proclaims that she's his girl and she doesn't even care that his hand is probably going to be put in a splint because of her. Though on the bright side, no more Mahler, for at least the time being.

It was in G&T that I found why Hot Shot looked so familiar. He turned out to be Hank, Mia's cousin.

I don't know whether to laugh or just shake my head. Mia didn't seem to know how to react to her cousin's sudden ascent into the modelling industry either. Nor could she figure out how to react to fact that it was Lilly, who had helped him to get there

"Lilly, I thought you found the modelling industry as a whole sexist and racist and belittling to the human race." Mia said, looking at Lil with confusion. I was looking at her too, over the top of my laptop where I was supposed to be writing an article for _Crackhead_, but wasn't… I was also suppose to be telling Mia to get on with the questions I had set her at the start of the class, but this conversation had the possibility of being far more enlightening than either of the things we were meant to be doing.

"So? What's your point?" Lil replied in a sort snotty voice.

"Well, according to Hank, you helped him realise his dream of becoming a you know-what. A model."

"Mia," Lilly said in this slow, patient voice that sounded as if she was trying to explain something to a very small child, which I could see Mia had noticed and wasn't thrilled at having that voice being used on her, "when I recognise a human soul crying out for self-actualisation, I am powerless to stop myself. I must do what I can to see that that person's dream is realised." Well, how bout helping me with my dream of getting with your best friend, huh? How bout helping your own brother once and awhile. But of course I didn't say that, instead I fought to keep myself from snorting at her words.

"Um, Lilly, I hadn't noticed that you had a real foothold in the modelling industry." Uh, neither had I.

Lil looked at Mia with exasperation.

"I don't." Lil said, sounding annoyed, "I merely taught your cousin how to make the most of his god-given talents. Some simple lessons in elocution and fashion," because Lil, you know so much about fashion, don't you, "and he was well on his way to landing that contract with Elite."

"Well," Mia said sounding somewhat huffy, probably from being talked to like she was a child, "why did it have to be such a big secret?"

"Do you have any idea how fragile the male ego is?" Yes, I do know, but still, I don't want to hear how fragile it is, especially from someone like my sister, so in defensive of my gender, I said, "Hey!"

"I'm sorry, but it's true," Lil said as she gave me a rather pointed look, "Hank's self-esteem had already been reduced to nothing thanks to Amber, Corn Queen of Versailles Country. I couldn't allow any negative comments ruin what little self-confidence he had left." No, you just wanted him all to yourself; I thought with annoyance, "You know how fatalistic boys can be." Again, in defence of my gender, "Hey!"

Lil simply ignored me as she kept on talking about her great, selfless deed.

"It was vital that Hank be allowed to pursue his dream without the slightest fatalistic influence. Otherwise, I knew, he didn't stand a chance. And so I kept our plan," our plan? More likely it was simply all hers and she just dragged Hank along with her, "secret even from those I most cared about. Any one of you, without consciously meaning to, might have torpedoed Hank's chances with the most casual of comments."

This seemed to annoy Mia even more.

"Come on." She grumbled, "We'd have been supportive." She looked to me and Lars. I forced myself to nod, even though inside I was cracking up. Lars nodded too, but you could see that he too was trying not laugh.

"Mia, think about it. If Hank had said to you, 'Mia, I want to be a model,' what would you have done? Come on. You would have laughed."

"No, I wouldn't have." She actually looked quite hurt that Lil would think that about her character.

"Yes, you would have. Because to you, Hank is your whiny, allergy-prone cousin from the Boondocks who doesn't even know what a bagel is. But I, you see, was able to look beyond that, to the man Hank had the potential to become…" I interrupted her here because I couldn't, for the life of me, keep silent any longer. What she was saying was so unbelievable, like she had helped him become President of America or something, not an underwear model.

"Yeah," I said with a snort, "a man destined to have his own pin-up calendar."

"You, Michael," Lil started pointing an accusing finger at me, "are just jealous."

I gave a snort of laughter. I may feel a lot of things in the direction of Hank, but jealousy is definitely not one of them.

"Oh, yeah." I said, giving Lil a 'give me a break' look, "I've always wanted a big picture of myself in my underwear hanging up in Times Square." The very thought made me cringe. And not because I haven't got the muscles to pull it off. I may not be a body builder, but my chest is pretty well defined, but the thought of just… no. Just no.

"You know, Lil," I said changing the subject away from me being more or less naked in a poster hanging in Times Square, "I highly doubt Mom and Dad are going to be so impressed by your tremendous act of charity that they're going to overlook the fact that you skipped school to do it. Especially when they find out that you have detention next week because of it." Thankfully, not with me. She has to write lines.

Lil gave this long suffering dramatic sigh as she said, "The must eleemosynary are often martyred."

I rolled my eyes, before turning to ask Mia if she would still be able to come Rocky Horror Show with the rest of us tomorrow night, but was stopped by Lil dragging Mia into an extremely indepth (and boring) conversation about what she was planning to feature in her next episode of _Lilly__Tells__It__Like__It__Is._

I didn't have another chance to talk to her for the rest of the day.

Computer Club was a waste of time that afternoon.

I would have preferred to have been still working with the teachers computers, but I had finished up with them and was now just fiddling around with the students computers (which were in better condition than the teachers).

All we did for entire meeting was try and figure out how to make it look like we had lost limbs. For our Halloween costumes, that is.

My costume simply involved having my intestines coming out of my Army jacket. I really didn't want to go through the whole bother of having my arm (or my leg like some tenth grader nutter wanted) strapped to my side so that it looks like I'm armless. I had enough trouble already, just trying to find a costume that actually fitted me without the arms and legs being too short.

Sometimes being tall and long limb really, really sucks! Big time. It took forever for the Computer Club girls (a grand total of three) to find a costume that could and would cover my wrists and ankles.

"I think we need to put a brick on your head." Judith teased after it was proven that yes my costume did fit me and that no, I was not going be armless or legless.

"I think it's little too late for that." Paul laughed.

I shot them both evils. It wasn't my flipping fault I was so bloody tall.

"So you're going to ask her out after _Rocky__Horror_?" I heard the excited babble of a couple of freshman who were standing nearby, all of whom had wanted to go armless, so had 'bloody stumps' sticking out of one armhole or another.

"Uh huh." One of the boys said, he was wearing a particularly goofy smile and – oh, it was Kenny. Mia's Bio partner.

"Do you think she'll say yes?" another asked.

"Finger's crossed." Kenny said, looking all hopeful but at the same time nervous as hell. Oh well, good luck to him. He is a bit of a dork but overall, he's basically an all round good kid, though maybe a little too obsessed with Japanese anime.

I hope whoever the girl is that he's planning to ask out has a stomach for anime, because my bet is that that will be what most of their dates will be made up over, lots and lots of anime viewing.

"Speaking of which," Paul said as he nodded toward the freshmen group (Judith had moved away to help the year ten nutter try and figure out how he was going to move around on one leg since we didn't have a crutch available), "Have you figured out how and when you're going to ask the little princess out?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Ah." Was my intelligent answer back.

Paul just rolled his eyes.

"I never thought I'd ever say this but Felix is right."

"About what?" I asked defensively.

"About you being a special moron. And being so slow on the whole asking someone out. It is honestly not that hard."

"I'm not being slow, I'm just…"

"Testing the waters? Dude, you've tested them long enough, just take the plunge already." I pulled a face.

"Seriously, Dude, the longer you wait, the more you risk someone else asking her out."

"Like?" I asked suddenly curious.

Paul suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"Like who, Paul."

"No one," he said a little hurriedly, "look just ask her out already, I'm begging you." And with that he hopped off the computer desk he had been currently sitting on and quickly walked off to where Judith was, with me staring after him with my mouth hanging open.

What was that about? What had Paul meant? Was there someone else trying to ask Mia out as well? I remembered Lil saying something about me not being the only one interested. Had she meant, did she know, that someone else was interested in Mia and was trying to warn me in her own round about way, just like Paul just now?

I felt suddenly sick to my stomach as my heart thumped madly in my chest at the thought of losing her again to another guy. And what if this other guy genuinely likes her? I couldn't come between that, not if he really, truly did like her. That wouldn't be fair on Mia. Not if she likes him back and she's happy to be with him.

I stared at my hands, trying to calm myself down. I just had to ask her before whoever this other guy was, did.

Right, so now I just had to figure out how to do just that.

Great…

Crap!

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> So yeah, this was very much a filler chapter, sort of like the calm before the storm. This chapter for some reason, maybe because I've had a cold for the duration of my writing this fic (hence in chapter two, the whole M&M kiss when Mia was sick with the flu. My own flu was sort of an inspiration for that scene, though I've never kissed a hot guy while I've been sick, 'pouts'.), but I was laughing uncontrollably through it, even though re-reading it I couldn't find what had me laughing so hard. But then I was in tears when I finished writing this fic, so 'shrugs'. I blame my cold.  
>Anyway, second last chapter, all very exciting because we know what the next chapter is going to be about don't we?<p> 


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:** And so, the final chapter of Book 2. Please enjoy the Chapter 12 and the last chapter for this fic.

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><p><strong>Chapter Twelve.<strong>

I shook my head

"I can understand the not grounding you until after Halloween, but the letting you out of the apartment in that outfit, I do not get at all."

"Why?" Lilly snapped looking up at me peevishly, "What's wrong with my costume." So, so many things. Her "costume" basically consisted of her wearing a black lacy nightie and a fake beard. You can probably understand my desire to look anywhere but at her, because honestly, if I had known she was leaving the apartment wearing only what she wearing, I would have made her turn right back around and change.

Seriously, how could our parents let her out of the house dressed like that?

"It's just…" I shook my head. Why get into a fight with her when she obviously saw nothing wrong with what she was wearing. She had just better not start saying that she's cold or complaining about all the creeps checking her out, even though I was already glaring at them.

I shifted nervously were we stood in line outside of the Village Cinema. It was almost time to go in and she still wasn't here yet.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Kenny was looking pretty anxious himself, and for some reason that bugged me. I didn't know why though.

The line was actually starting to move when Lilly suddenly started screaming, "Oh, my God! You came! You came!"

For a moment I thought that Hank had possibly turned up, she sounded that excited, and from the look on Boris's face, so had he. But it wasn't him at all.

For a moment my mind went completely blank when I saw her (and Lars) getting out of the Limo and coming towards us.

I have never really been a fan of huge, puffy dresses, up until now. Until this very moment in time, I thought that anything pink and puffy was something to vomit at the sight of, but now…

Holy shit!

How can anyone look that good and not know that they do? How can she not know she is completely and utterly beautiful, even without the puffy dress and the make-up and her hair done so that it curled around her face? All she needs it is to smile like she is now and…

Focus, Moscovitz.

"Quick." God, my voice sounds all weird, why does it sound so weird? "Get in line. I got two extra tickets just in case you ended up making it after all." I had received a lot of weird looks when I paid for the extra tickets, but damn, I'm glad I brought them. Especially when Mia's smile went even wider as she thanked me.

I made to reply, except Lil cut me off.

"Where's Hank?" So much for her saying she felt absolutely nothing for him.

I rolled my eyes.

"He couldn't make it." Mia replied, her smile still wide as she looked around at all the different costumes that were around us, completely missing Lil's disappointed look. Yeah, she so did feel something for him, not "like" so much as her wanting to stick her tongue down her throat. Yeah, that mental image makes me want to gag too.

I vaguely heard Boris say, triumphantly. "He cannot come. Good." but I was too busy just looking at Mia.

"What are you supposed to be?" Lilly demanded, cutting rudely into my daydreams of… well, never mind.

"Duh," Mia's smile had faulted a bit at Lil tone of voice.

I frown at Lil for making Mia's rare truly happy smile disappear some, "I'm Glinda the Good Witch."

You couldn't just be Princess Mia? But I could see how the costume could be interpreted as the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz, what with the silver cardboard tiara and the wand made out of crystal drink stirrers.

"I knew that," I spluttered out sounding completely lame, "You look really…" just say Moscovitz, just she looks beautiful, just spit it out!

Mia's head was tilted ever so slightly to one side. She was standing quite near to me and all I had to do was lean in ever so slightly and our… Focus Moscovitz! "You look really…" Why can't I just say it? What's wrong with me?

I could see the confusion forming in her grey eyes, as well as hurt. Ah, no! Crap!

"You are way to glam for Halloween." Lil declared near us and what was left of Mia's bright happy smile vanished at that.

She looked away from me and turned to Lil while I stared at the back of her head, mentally beating my head against a wall. It didn't help that Lars was quietly laughing.

I shot him a 'so not helping' look which stopped him laughing, though he still looked amused.

I could hear Mia asking Lil what the heck she was suppose to be and Lil replying in a sarcastic voice that she was a Freudian slip.

"And I am Al Capone," Boris proclaimed, he looked far more cheerful than he had looked all night, "Chicago gangster."

Mia's previous smile came back a bit at that as she looked Boris up and down with an amused look.

"Good for you, Boris." She grinned at him as he grinned widely back. Then she turned away from him to look curiously to her other side where I saw Kenny had suddenly materialised, which I thought was a tad odd, especially since his goofy grin was back in place.

Wasn't he supposed to be waiting for his dream girl to arrive? Why the heck was he over with us? And looking so damn happy too?

"You made it!" he cheered, looking way too delighted for my liking. I felt an irrational urge to hit him, but refrained from doing so.

"I did." Mia said, her smile was almost back and she was bouncing excitedly up and down on the balls of her feet.

The line started moving then and much to my great embarrassment the whole of the Computer Club started marching and going, "Hut two three four. Hut two three four."

I could have shot the person who suggested that we do this except that then I would have to shoot myself, since that idiot was me! I meant it only as a sarcastic comment and yet everyone in the club took it on and voted that we should do just that!

I didn't though, march that is. I hung back with Mia and Lil pretending that I didn't know the special cases in front of us, even though I was dressed just like them.

I was a little surprise when I found Mia beside me as we walked into the theatre. I'm pretty sure Lars had something to do with somehow getting us beside each other, though I don't think he planned, when it came for everyone to sit down, for Kenny to be sitting on Mia's other side, instead of him. He sat behind Mia instead.

A quick look behind me at him, I saw that he was frowning slightly and he looked like he was trying to communicate something with me, but before I could get the full message the movie started, which I was grateful for because it shut Kenny up, who was trying to talk biology with Mia, though she wasn't exactly paying all that much attention to him. Which again made me feel odd but in a good way. But why, why did I suddenly feel good about Mia ignoring Kenny. I felt as if something, something important, was tangling right in front of my face, something I needed to noticed and act quickly to stop it, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. But I had a strong feeling it was going to come and bite me in the arse later on.

_Rocky__Horror_ is always amusing to watch, even if it does have singing and dancing in it, it's still entertaining and you get a good laugh from it.

Though in truth I think I spent most of the two hours watching Mia rather than the movie. Her smile was back in full force and she was giggling almost hysterically.

A couple of times she caught me looking at her but instead of calling me out on it or anything, she just grinned brilliantly back me, which sent my head into a daze. How did this girl have so much affect on me?

After the movie finished, we headed over to Round the Clock for breakfast. We were all moderately high on excitement, everyone chattering loudly and at once so really you couldn't hear a word that was being said.

Mia was sticking pretty close to my side which was just fine, except that Kenny was sticky pretty close to hers.

I felt suddenly extremely possessive of her, not an attractive trait, but something deep inside me want to snap at Kenny to get lost.

I looked over at Lars, hoping to communicate some sort of 'get rid of him' message to him, but Lars was pretty worn out by this stage and didn't catch my message at all.

At the table we were still loud and rowdy, and we were all huddled around the table on benches, so Mia was pressed fairly closely to my side, again I didn't mind at all, but once again the possessiveness in me raised its head when I saw just how close Kenny was to her.

Just because his girl didn't turn up didn't mean that he had to be so cosy with mine… wait…

I shook my head, but thought disappeared again.

Only to return moments later when something hit my shoulder, not particularly hard but it was enough, as well as Mia weight suddenly not being pressed quite so closely to my side, to immediately know something was up, something was wrong, something was really, really wrong.

And when I looked over, I saw exactly what was wrong and immediately felt sick.

My god! I am so freaking blind!

My head snapped in Lars direction, desperate to get some message like 'break his arm' across to him, but Lars was on his fifth cup of coffee and wasn't seeing what I was.

Paul did though and I felt like murdering him. He had known, he had known who the "other guy" was and didn't tell me. He knew that Kenny liked Mia and yet all he had told me was… to ask her out already.

Paul shot me an apologetic look, which I ignored as I stood up because basically there is only so much a guy can take and this was way, way more than I could take.

"Well, I'm beat. What do you say we call it a night?" my voice sounded almost robotic and I didn't give a damn that I was shot with looks that were questioning my sanity because in truth I was too. Every instinct in my body was telling me to yell and to punch Kenny, but somehow I managed to refrain from doing so, somehow.

"What's with you, Michael?" Lil said with a voice that I knew was leading up to a teasing, "Gotta catch up on your beauty sleep?" I didn't respond, I just looked in my wallet, trying not to think of anything else except how much owed for my food and how much I'd need to spend to catch a Taxi for Lil and me to take us home.

"I'm tired too," even though I was trying to think only of money, her voice broke through my plan and I even though I had only seconds before sworn I would not look at her again tonight, I was looking at her jerking herself away from Kenny (yay…) and scrambling to her feet, which was a hard thing to do due to her puffy skirt and came to stand by me, which made me feel momentarily better, just having her close again.

"Lars, can you call the car?" Lars looked positively delighted and had his phone out in seconds, dialling Mia's driver to come and pick them up.

"So Mia can I call you?" Can I be shot now, please?

I saw both Lars and Lilly's heads whip in our direction because being the sucker for punishment that I am, I hadn't moved away from Mia yet.

Lil's eye grew wide as she looked over the three of us and understanding filled them. Lars eyebrows shot to his hairline before he looked at me.

I looked away, staring down at my feet, trying to keep myself calm as my mind went over how seriously I had messed up this time. Crap!

I did a pretty good job at ignoring everything that was happening around me until Lars touched my shoulder, holding out a twenty.

"For the movie tickets." He explained. Could this night get any worse? I didn't want his pity.

But it didn't stop my ears from burning as I managed to stammer out. "Oh, no. My treat."

Even though Mia's eyes widen in distress as she tried to insist that I didn't have to. I just looked at her, wondering two things; why she couldn't just let me do this one thing for her and why she was looking up at me like that?

"Well, thank you very much, Michael." Why did it sound so forced and why did her eyes seem to be begging me…

I forced myself to look away from her, even though out of the corner of my eye I saw the hurt look pass briefly across her face when I did that. Which of course made me feel terrible and guilty, but I at that moment, I couldn't handle it, looking at her, without feeling like my heart was being stomped on. Which was how it felt, like it was being stomped on with huge army boots!

Though oddly enough, it wasn't her that I felt was stomping on it, but rather myself, for taking too long, for being so slow and for losing her to KENNY Showalter of all people!

I don't know how we managed to be standing side by side outside Round the Clock, waiting for our turn to get in her Limo.

Nearly everyone asked for a ride back to their place in it because of the late hour. Or earliness of the hour… whatever. She was by my side and standing rather close to me because it was getting rather chilly and she had no jacket.

We were standing a little back from the crowd who were getting into her limo, so I decided that I'd take the shot, I mean, honestly, what did I have to lose? Seriously? Nothing she could say could make me feel any worse than I already felt.

"What I meant to say before, Mia, was that you look… you look really…" oh for gods sake just spit it out already!

She looked up at me those big grey eyes of hers and somehow I found the strength or the will to finish my sentence. I had lost, so what did it matter.

"You look really nice in that dress." I said it softly, willing myself to look away from her, but just couldn't.

I expected her to reply with something sweet and gracious, all princess like so as not to hurt my feelings. But instead, she said nothing.

Instead she just smile up at me and not any sort of smile, it was a smile that I had never seen before and it made my heart flip-flop at the sight of it. How could such a simple smile make her suddenly all the more beautiful? How?

I suddenly hoped that this smile would remain solely mine, that she'd never smiled it to anyone else. I wanted it to be simply mine and mine alone. That special smile.

I didn't realise how close we were standing until my head start leaning forward to kiss her, something I noticed that she wasn't rejecting. Or maybe she didn't notice.

Another moment and our lips would have met if weren't for Kenny's voice breaking through the peace of the moment.

"Are you guys coming or not?" he yelled, his head and shoulders sticking out of the Limo's sun roof, looking like a complete idiot.

I was tempted to yell back no and try and scramble back the moment, so that I could kiss her. But it was gone and I was pretty sure I was never going to get it back. At least I got to tell her that she looked nice. And it was keeping her smiling all the way to when Lil and I got dropped off at our apartment, she was still smiling at me, that same little smile that was all mine.

"Why did you have to wait so long?" Lil asked as we head for our apartment.

"Why couldn't you have just told me?" I muttered back.

"Because it's an interesting social experiment…"

"If you put this in your book, I will seriously never speak with you again." I interrupted her. It sounded a tad dramatic, but at that moment I meant every word. I had just live through that, I didn't want to read about or have it quoted back to me. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and try to forget the whole thing…

Try.

And failing, I know.

How could I get over her, when I had spent all this time trying to figure out just how I exactly felt about her? What I really felt about her. It was more than just like, like wouldn't hurt as badly as this, I'm sure.

I don't care if people say that it's wrong or that I'm too young to be feeling this way about another person. I know what I feel and I know that it's true and that it's never going to go away, not anytime soon, possibly not ever.

My heart belongs to Mia Thermopolis and her only.

I love her with all my heart and I think I will continue to keep on loving her til the day I die.

That's how messed up I am.

A seventeen year old shouldn't be in love, not this type of love, the type of love that is so deeply rooted in his system that he honestly doesn't know how he'd function without her. No seventeen year old should feeling like that about another person and yet here I am, feeling exactly that.

_If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours. If they don't, they never were._

I grabbed my pillow from behind my head and pressed it down upon my face.

I could feel Pavlov crawl on to my bed beside me, his head coming to rest on my stomach. I rubbed a hand against his head; while still keep the other pressed against the pillow on my face.

Be happy Mia.

I love you.

_fin_

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Thank to you to all for reading this fic and for all the wonderful reveiws that I have recieved. They made my day.  
>I will most likely post the first chapter of book 3 tomorrow, so keep an eye out for it. And yeah, thank you so much for all the support and the encoragement that you've all given me and hopefully, fingers crossed, I won't disappoint you with book three.<br>I've gotten over the worst of Michael's down and depressed time and now I'm on to him finally, finally starting to act.  
>I have written book 3 a little different from how I've read it before from Mike's POV... ok, I say a little, but its actually quite a bit different. I've add a number of my "own" little scenes which hopefully you like and maybe give you all a completely different take on a certain charater... but that's all I'm going to say, because you'll all just have to wait and see.<br>Once again thank to you all for reading and for commenting and yeah, hope to hear from you soon and read more of these wonderful comments when i start posting book 3.


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